Last Updated on: 21st February 2014, 01:16 pm
Toilet brush wins wacky bowl
Michigan anti-lawsuit group gives out “awards” for wackiest warning labels on products.
A toilet brush with a tag that says “Do not use for personal hygiene” has taken top prize for the wackiest consumer warning label of the year, according to an anti-lawsuit group.
The Michigan Lawsuit Abuse Watch, M-LAW, whose main mission is to reveal how lawsuits and anxiety over lawsuits have created a need for overly obvious warnings on products, sponsors The Wacky Warning Label Contest each year.
Other top finishers this year include:
A scooter with the warning “This product moves when used.”
— A digital thermometer with the advice “Once used rectally, the thermometer should not be used orally.”
— An electric blender used for chopping and dicing that reminds users to “Never remove food or other items from the blades while the product is operating.”
— And a three-inch bag of air used for packaging that read “Do not use this product as a toy, pillow, or flotation device.”
“Warning labels are a sign of our lawsuit-plagued times,” said Robert B. Dorigo Jones, M-LAW president. “Plaintiff’s lawyers who file the lawsuits that prompt these warnings argue they are making us safer, but the warnings have become so long that few of us read them anymore– even the ones we should read.”
The group hopes the contest will remind us all to read the warnings on our products more carefully and motivate judges to stop what it says are frivolous lawsuits.
The winning labels were chosen by listeners of a popular morning radio show in Detroit, the group said.
If I can find the full list, I’ll post it. Generally there are a lot of good ones.