The American Spectator: Litigation Nation

re: Ralph R. Reiland: "With a seven-hour trip ahead of us, I asked the station's attendant (Jersey banned self-service gas pumping in 1949, so every station has an attendant) to check the oil. The station wasn't busy and he was just standing around, waiting for the gas pump to automatically click off at sixty dollars or so. "I can't," he said, referring to the oil check. "Some lady came in here in a junker and broke down on the way home and sued us for $10,000... Her car was worth $1,500 -- tops. Her lawyer said it was our fault she broke down because we were the last ones to look at her car." / He continued the story as I popped my hood and got out of the car to check my own oil. "She won. I don't know how much -- if it was the whole $10,000 or not. But the boss says we're not in the business of checking oil anymore." / So now we have a mandated-by-law "full service" station with no service. /There's also no seesaw in our local playground..."...