I know this is way OT, but the insurance industry in the 70's went so far as to publicize a case where a guy supposedly was trimming his hedges with his lawnmower. He picked it up, and just started trimming his hedges with it. He dropped it on his foot, cutting his foot pretty badly. He sued the lawnmower company and won the proverbial "millions" of dollars. The American Trial Lawyers Association did an investigation, trying to find out more about this case. Eventually it turned out that there was not such case, but the insurance industry advocates who promulgated this justified the story as "emblematic" of the types of cases being brought by plaintiff's lawyers and the need for legal reforms in product liability cases. So the story was not true.
Sometime around 1994 or 1995 I was driving somewhere. Sebastian was on the radio. He hates lawyers. He used to get sued a lot, sexual harassment (calling the weather girl "big " until she ran off set crying, etc, etc, etc.) Anyway, Sebastian on one of his lawyer rants actually told that story. This was a story that was officially debunked in the late 70's yet it continued to thrive at least into the 90's. So, don't believe everything you read.