How seriously should this be taken? Man suing White Castle for small booths.

Deliberate double entendre.

From a policy perspective, it's somewhat idiotic to encourage destructive eating, then spread the costs of accomodating said eaters to everyone else. A legal-economic principle, placing the burden on the lowest-cost-avoider, is present here.

Perhaps it's because I've never been on the butt-end of fat jokes, but I just don't think it's right to encourage reckless eating. We've pretty much outcasted smokers (no smoking indoors, exceptionally high taxes), so I don't think we ought to make such a large concession by including obesity as a disability (excluding obesity as a symptom of a disease, of course).

 

OK. My angle is: people whose obesity is caused by simple lack of self-control are stealing ambulances from people who need them. LoganSnake mentioned 'entitlement'. That was part of what prompted me to share this. The message sent to us by the fatty-through-lack-of-self-control is "I think I'll continue stuffing myself ... I know there's a MUCH higher chance I or someone with me, will be calling on the Emergency Services ... and as I waddle and gasp my way past or through you ... you know that an ambulance you or your family may need ... might not be available because of me. I will be in that hospital bed which is not available for you ... and I don't really care. As I crush your ribs when I sit next to you on public transport, know that If you and I are in a bus-wreck ... I'll win the triage contest over you, because I'm obviously at greater risk. And I don't care. Oh I might feel some of those 'But I DO care' feelings and .. yeah, that's good enough for me. "

But then I read this:

http://www.naafaonline.com/dev2/

And I get to feeling guilty for my attitude.

But hang on WTF ... their mission statement seems to be sliding around. First it's pro 'fat acceptance'. They transform that in to anti 'size discrimination in all its forms'. I am feeling a bit less guilty. Then is tagged on the seemingly redundant 'all aspects of life'. And I feel much less guilty. At the moment, I'm still stuck in my feelings. I might have a go at parsing this mission statement tomorrow, but at the moment, I am just smelling a big fat rat.

 

Now, I wouldn't ever sue or even complain to White Castle themselves, but their booths ARE really fucking small.

 

... and they had better raise their threshold! I bumped my head while walking through the door. And the counters are way too low. I have to bend over to pick up my order. And those drive-thru lanes! Sheesh! My RV won't fit! That's why I had to walk through that damned low doorway in the first place! By the way... your urinals are too low... the sink, too! Better get all of this shit straight or I'll sue you for discriminating against tall people!

 

I've always found their counter a little high...

 

you missed the obvious - an angled counter. What do you mean you want it flat so you can stack things on it???

 

I support this guy. So long as we continue to allow government-sponsored press gangs to drag ordinary citizens off the street into these dens of obesity and force them to eat there beyond what any normal person would want to consume, we MUST insist that the restaurants, which gain so much from this unconstitutional coercion, should at least make some concessions to the victims for their collusion in this heinous activity.

 

Is his life depending on this food place?

He has the right to remain overweight. The restaurant has the right to choose their customer groups, as well as their decoration. Their loss, if they don't get all potential customers.

I would like to see a case of restaurant suing their customer, whose weight broke the chair, he sat on. But they usually go by the policy of not wanting to lose their paying customers.

I know there are people, who struggle with balancing their weight and suffer from their obesity. Their obesity does not make me think less of them, unless they make silly claims like this.

 

I don't think his claim is silly at all.

He's 64 years old, for God's sake, and he doesn't look too overweight to me. When you're above 60, there are few reasons to be in tip-top shape. Especially given the fact that at 64 you have a much higher difficulty to exercise and to burn calories, so even eating too much bread and potatoes will make you fatter.

I don't know, if you have something like that in the US, but in Germany there is a law which obliges companies in the service/food retail industry to provide for all of their customers within a reasonable amount of effort.

It's not like this guy is asking for seats where 200kg people can sit their asses on.

In short, I think his claim is within the limits of being reasonable.

 

Let me know when ya'll get off your high horses and get done jerking your knees and I'll explain why he could actually win this case. And why him winning would be a good thing for everyone.

You're obviously excluded from the above, Remixer.

 

Consider me jaded from the McDonald's Coffee Crotch fiasco.

Hah, I'd love to get drunk with you and argue Twinkie Defense.

...

No, really... lay it out for us.

 

I know Jazz' side.

All these foolish claims have resulted in piles of fine print and all fools taken into consideration, when running business.

There was discussion at work about doctors' malpractise. Someone claimed, hospitals here would be more careful about these issues, if there were enough law suits filed on even the smallest cases, like they have in US.

 

Really?

You posted this yourself:

Sec. 12102. Definition of disability
As used in this chapter:
(1) Disability
The term "disability" means, with respect to an individual
(A) a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities of such individual

Being fat does hinder you in a substantial manner from executing long walks, hard labour, as well as most intermediate-level sports activities.

EDIT: What does a person do, when he/she is obese caused by a genetic or a mental disease, for example? How does White Castle take into account such "medically disabled" people? Simply put, they don't.

You also stated that "the law basically says private entities serving the public cannot discriminate".

By making booths too small for fat people to comfortably sit on, White Castle is, ipso facto, guilty of committing a violation of the Disability Act and opened themselves up for legal liability.

 

The real laugh: It's whatever the court finds reasonable.

...

In Cambodia, a decades-old landmine disables you.

In America, you disable yourself with a plastic fork.

...

Fuck the legal angle. That's ignoring the problem.

As our Roachboy has often said: masturbation.

The problem is we're fat and we're okay with it.

 

Hey, I agree with you on the no-end issue. But this is America we're talking about, where a person gets millions of dollars in compensation from a food place because the coffee was too hot.

I also agree with you from the business perspective, these establishments would suffer a huge increase in costs every time a new franchise opens. However, is that even true? You mentioned small people: get adjustable chairs and tables. You mentioned 600lb and 900lb people: as if they'd walk the 20 meters to the place.

Notwithstanding the previous, as far as the man from the news article is concerned, White Castle screwed itself when it acknowledged in writing that there is a need for bigger seating, made promises and even went so far as to send detailed plans to him. This man deserves compensation, at the very least because he was lied to for two years.

 

Then you're wrong. If you think the McDonald's claim is an example of the US judicial system run amuck, then you don't know anything about it.

And you clearly don't know much about malpractice claims in the US. Sorry, but as someone who does, that's just clear.

White Castle made promises that changes would be made. They acknowledged an issue and made promises to fix it. They have not fixed it.
--- merged: Sep 13, 2011 3:04 PM ---

You don't know what you're talking about with the coffee example. That payment was only partially because of the temperature of the coffee (which was served far too hot to drink - a couple of degrees below boiling), but was more about the poor design of the lid, which popped off, allowing the unreasonably hot coffee to spill.

Remixer, you're in tough territory here. I don't think you know enough about the American judicial system to make the argument you're making, even though I happen to agree with it.