Wacky Warning: Do Not Mow Rocks

Help me figure out this wacky warning/instruction sign in a bed of stones that says “Do Not Mow.” Comes via a friend of a Facebook friend.

Possibilities:

The property owner recently redid the landscaping and replaced the grass with rocks. The property owner lacks confidence in the skill and judgment of the person or company responsible for maintaining the landscaping. The property owner’s lawyer is one of my former Torts students to whom I taught the adage, “Tort law is a world where everything that can go wrong does.”

What is this Graphic Warning Sign Trying to Say?

Can you figure out all the things this sign is trying to tell you?

Pictorial or graphic warning and instruction signs and labels are intended to be universally understood. That’s why they exist. There are roughly 6,500 different languages on this planet and space limitations, among other concerns, limit the ability to use multiple languages to explain warnings and instructions.

Many product makers and public space operators do use multiple languages in their warnings, but they generally stick to a few top choices, usually selected by anticipated regional audiences. Dual English and Spanish warnings, for example, are common in the U.S.

The problem is that it’s difficult to

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Wacky Sign: “No Campaign Materials or Clothing Allowed”

Let’s face it, even for the most dedicated voters, standing in line waiting to vote can be boring, unless you happened to be at this polling station in Arkansas. You may think of Arkansas as a conservative state, but if this wacky sign is any indication, they are having some wild times over there.

 

p.s. I’m convinced many if not most “wacky signs” that get circulated these days are fake, but as I recall, this one was posted by an Arkansas friend who took the photo at the polling station.

Silly Product Warning: Don’t Pick Up Broken Glass with Bare Hands

As a professor of tort and products liability law, I appreciate that manufacturers often feel the need to warn consumers of obvious risks, even though products liability law does not impose a duty to warn of obvious risks.

First, it’s safer from a liability standpoint for the product maker/seller because it avoids the possibility that a jury might, in hindsight after an injury, disagree as to whether a particular risk was obvious. Moreover, warning of obvious risks serves a re-enforcement/reminder function.

The downside of being inundated with warnings of obvious risks is the “dilution effect.” When consumers are bombarded with warnings of risks that are patently obvious, it dilutes the

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Boogie Board Guaranteed to be Unsafe (If You Try Hard Enough)

We love wacky product warnings at lawhaha.com, but as a Torts and Products Liability professor, I’ve never been a fan of product sellers trying to be funny in their product warnings or instructions. See, for example, here, here, and here.

But I concede that these “Guarantees” for a foam boogie board are pretty cute, including that it is guaranteed “to be unsafe in some way if you really work at it.”

Warning: Do Not Use Kitty Litter as Traction Aid

This is one of those warnings that may sound silly, but really isn’t. I wouldn’t be surprised if a whole lot of people have tried to use kitty litter as a traction aid for icy walkways:

Do not use this product as a traction aid because product becomes slippery and slick when wet.

I ding the seller one point for being redundant because “slippery” and “slick” are the same thing, but not a bad warning.

I have a bigger problem with the instructional photos. Does people really need illustrations to show how to pour cat litter?

 

Airbag Warning: It Might Not Work

Maybe I have a litigious nature or have simply seen too many products liability cases, but I have a feeling that people who are injured because their airbag didn’t inflate in a collision are not going to be appeased by this assertion in the automobile product manual:

The fact that your air bag did not inflate in a collision does not mean something is wrong with the air bag system.

Oh, I beg to differ …

In all seriousness, I was once appointed as a Special Master for discovery in a federal products liability case involving just this issue: a woman lost control of her vehicle and careened

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Dumb as a Doormat Product Warning

Many of my friends have posted this picture of a warning label on a doormat on Facebook and tagged me in it because they know I love wacky warnings. This one definitely qualifies as wacky, but intentionally so.

All of the comments mention how hilarious it is. It is amusing, but I have a different take on it. I think it’s a ridiculously dumb warning from a legal standpoint.

I concede that doormats are not very dangerous, and the probability of them causing injury is low. Admittedly, it’s not quite like putting funny warnings on a chainsaw or ladder.

However, people have sued over, for example, a

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Caution: Don’t Eat Gum From Urinal

This is one of those head-scratchers that leaves you wondering whether it’s fake news because it just seems too bizarre, even by wacky warning standards. Let’s assume, probably justifiably, that there are indeed people who eat gum from urinals. Are there really enough of them to warrant a laminated “Caution” sign? And do people really need a warning not to do it?

“Dang, I was going to eat that piece of gum someone spit out that maybe a hundred people have peed on. It’s a good thing I saw the sign in time!”

The image appears to be real (that is, not photoshopped), but I don’t know where it

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Oven Requires Waiving Your Legal Rights Before Using

Waive your rights to warm up your dinner.

One of my students sent me this tweet from Morten Nielsen regarding a new oven requiring on the touch screen that, before using the product, the happy new appliance owner must waive their legal rights by agreeing to the “Terms of Service.” Even in just the snippet of text visible in the picture, the user is assuming risks and waiving legal claims.

Stripping away the legalese, before you can warm up a pizza, you have to give up some legal rights.

A “contract of adhesion” is a form contract where the party being asked to sign it has no

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Warning: Sign Tells Robbers to “Have a Nice Day”

I’ve always heard that folks in Virginia are nice, and here’s proof, a warning sign to criminals in the window of a Sonic restaurant near the Norfolk airport:

Attention Robbers

Time Delay Safe

Have a nice Day.

I take issue with the unnecessary capitalization of “Day,” and I suppose if they were super-nice, they could have put an exclamation point at the end instead of period. But this is quibbling.

Warning: Diarrhea? Keep the Gate Closed

Like the old Certs commercial, “It’s two, two signs in one!”

Were they trying to save money by combining these two unrelated instructions on one sign? Or maybe they really were telling people with diarrhea to keep the gate closed, especially the sphincter gate.

(And do they really think people who have had diarrhea within the past two weeks are going to follow this instruction?)

–Thanks to Randy Maniloff.

Warning: Don’t Touch Fire

Warning: Do Not Put Hands in Fire

An age-old products liability dilemma for manufacturers:

What will a court consider, in hindsight, to be an “obvious” product danger?

Generally, under U.S. law, there is no legal duty for product makers or sellers to warn of product dangers that are obvious? Why? Because if they’re obvious, people will already know about them and the warning won’t accomplish anything. Google dictionary synonyms for obvious include plain to see, evident, apparent, conspicuous, prominent, noticeable,” even unmissable.

But what’s obvious to most people may not be obvious to everyone, so why not go ahead and warn, even when it seems obvious, such

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Warning: No Manspreading

From Madrid comes a new pictorial instruction sign (not technically a “warning sign”) on public buses prohibiting “manspreading.” I was not familiar with this term. I thought maybe it was something like this, which I wholeheartedly agree should be banned:

But that’s not it. It’s this:

Okay, this might be worse. Manspreading is the practice of some men to sit with their legs spread on a bus seat, crowding people around them, particularly women, apparently. Whether this is done to protect personal space or intentionally invade someone else’s is not clear from the article.

But as the question always arises with pictorial communicative signs, does

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Graphic Warning: Keep Hands Out of Vendor?

Pictorial or graphic warnings are designed to be interpretable by anyone, whatever language they speak and whatever their literacy level. The problem is it can be darn difficult to convey a product warning in a single image.

This graphic warning sticker on a soda/water machine does a good job of getting one’s attention and clearly alerts people that they should not be sticking their hand in between grinding gears. Where those gears are remains a mystery, but I suppose it must be the exit path for the soda or water bottle.

I have a bigger issue with the verbal warning: KEEP HANDS OUT OF VENDOR. Vendor? That sounds more

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Wacky Warning Sign: World’s Safest Road Excavation

Thanks to my Swiss friend for this link to a variety of wacky warning signs in Switzerland. The Swiss are very safe people, no doubt about it. Look closely at what this monstrous, overdone barrier and warning contraption is protecting: what looks to be about a four-inch deep road excavation.

Compare the Swiss approach to how we handle this type of hazard in good old Memphis.

–Thanks to Pat Crowell.

You Are About to Enter the Sex Worker Zone

A Zurich friend sent along this sign in Kleinbasler in Basel, intended to alert sex workers of new “tolerance zones,” designed to impose more control over prostitution, which is legal in Switzerland.

According an article (link no longer available), “there has been a high turnover of prostitutes recently, mainly from EU countries in Eastern Europe, who are increasing competition, creating price falls and making it hard to convey the rules.”

The competition led to demands by locals for more restrictions. There are currently 800 sex workers in Basel. Police made 120 arrests last year for working outside of designated zones.

Thanks to Pat Crowell.

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Don’t Store Explosives Next to Your Space Heater

Don’t point space heaters at cans of gasoline five inches away.

Well, it’s not quite that bad, but this warning in a package of instructions for a small space heater (maybe 10 by 12 inches)seems almost as obvious. Not faulting the manufacturer. No doubt fires, probably a lot of them, have started because consumers unwisely placed heaters next to each of the listed flammable materials, probably including cans of gasoline.

U.S. products liability law does not require warnings against “obvious dangers.” But what’s obvious? If people regularly suffer harm using a product in a dangerous way is it because the danger isn’t obvious or because product users

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Smoke Detector Warning Under Fire

Not surprisingly, the product warnings accompanying smoke detectors are extensive. Smoke detector manufacturers have been held liable in lawsuits when the detector failed to work properly and harm resulted to residents.

I bought a replacement smoke detector last week at Home Depot and, as always, enjoyed reading the product warnings and instructions.

They provided a lot of good advice, but surely the first item of “WHAT TO DO WHEN THE ALARM SOUNDS” could have been worded better:

Alert small children in the home.

Maybe I’m quibbling, but I have three issues with this instruction.

First, the word “Alert” seems too unemphatic. “Hey kids, the house is on

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Warning: Always Read Fine Print

Grains such as barley and wheat used to make beer contain gluten (although gluten-free beer can be made from grains such as sorghum, buckwheat, rice, and millet).

Can gluten be removed from traditional beer grains? During the middle of our products liability coverage in first-year Torts, a student sent this photo of a beer carton boasting in bold capital letters “CRAFTED TO REMOVE GLUTEN.”

The beer was of interest to the student, who suffers from celiac disease. Persons with celiac disease, an autoimmune disorder, cannot consume gluten because their bodies will mistakenly react to gluten as if it were a poison.

But then she came to

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Beware of Tripping Alligators and Fake Warning Signs

This sign warning “Do Not Feed Hallucinogens to Alligators” would be amusing if it were real, but it’s not.

Complicating life at Lawhaha.com, where we love to post interesting warning labels and signs, is the proliferation of fake, Photoshopped samples.

Sometimes it’s hard to tell. University of Memphis first-year law student George Scoville sent me the alligators picture. It looked a bit sketchy. Research led to a Reddit post detailing indicators that the picture is fake, including, for example, a Shutterstock watermark on the mushroom.

But George had also sent a second similar photo: “Do Not Give the Bison Psychoactive Substances.” This one

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Warning: No Standing or Sitting Allowed

I guess we’ll have to take this one lying down because no standing or sitting is allowed. From a former student comes this sign at a baseball field in Burns Park, North Little Rock, Arkansas.

What is the sign really trying to convey? No loitering in this area? No people in this area? Under a strict construction, could you lie down in the area and be in compliance with the sign’s directive?

–Thanks for Shayne Smith.

Warning: Watch Your Head, British Style

Low-clearance warnings can help avert unintentional head-banging (as opposed to purposeful head-banging to, say, Metallica).

In the U.S., we shout these warnings (Danger! Watch Your Head!) like we shout everything. But the Brits take a more proper, refined approach, as shown by the sign on the right, taken in a London pub.

The only thing missing is an “Old Chap” at the end, as in “Please Do Mind Your Head, Old Chap.”

Thanks to Pat Crowell.

Warning: Do Not Touch Warning Sign

I’ve seen pictures like this on Facebook that were Photoshopped jokes, but this sign warning “Danger: Do Not Touch, This Sign Has Sharp Edges” is the real deal, straight from Auckland, New Zealand.

The friend who captured this image reports that she is not sure whether the sign is a joke or not because it’s attached to another large normal sign. Weird stuff.

Thanks to Lina Lim.

Warning: “Get rid of children”

Free parenting advice – “Get rid of children”

What to do with the kids? It’s an eternal problem for parents.

Who knew the answer would be so simple and come, not from a parenting book, but from a product warning label on a Power Bank charger for electronic devices:

Get rid of children

We also see that it is unlikely the language of this warning will make it into the next edition of Strunk & White, Elements of Style:

Do not break,dismantling, into the fire or placed in …

What???

With all the money the goes into R & D for a new

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Warning: Trail Unsafe When Under Water

Yes, it may be hard to believe, but it’s true. This trail at the Razorback Regional Greenway in Northwest Arkansas–along with every other trail in the world–is dangerous when underwater. Trails are also dangerous when covered with poisonous snakes, loose sticks of dynamite, large rusty spikes, and giant spiders from the planet Xenon. Where are the warnings for those dangers?

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Pictorial Warnings from Picturesque Italy

We love pictorial warnings at Lawhaha.com, as shown here, here, here, here, here, here, and several other places. Remember that the goal of a pictorial warning is to advise of risks or deliver instructions to persons who cannot read or understand the written warning. So in trying to figure them out, you have to set aside the textual versions that usually accompany pictorial

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Warning: No Protection in Texas from Dangerous Farm Animal Activities

 

From Texas comes this warning sign that:

A farm animal professional is not liable for an injury to or the death of a participant in farm animal activities resulting from the inherent risk of farm animal activities.

First, we notice the evolution of the term “professional” in modern society. Originally, there were only three professions: clergy, lawyers, and doctors. Over time, the number of groups laying claim to the title of a “professional” has expanded to include architects, engineers, pharmacists, et cetera. Add to that list “farm animal professionals.”

Not sure of the history of the referenced statute, but it would be interesting to see if the

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Funny Law School Stories
For all its terror and tedium, law school can be a hilarious place. Everyone has a funny law school story. What’s your story?

Strange Judicial Opinions
Large collection of oddball and off-the-wall judicial opinions and orders.

Product Warning Labels
A variety of warning labels, some good, some silly and some just really odd. If you come encounter a funny or interesting product warning label, please send it along.

Tortland
Tortman! Andrew J McClurg
Tortland collects interesting tort cases, warning labels, and photos of potential torts. Raise risk awareness. Play "Spot the Tort."

Weird Patents
Think it’s really hard to get a patent? Think again.

Legal Oddities
From the simply curious to the downright bizarre, a collection of amusing law-related artifacts.

Spot the Tort
Have fun and make the world a safer place. Send in pictures of dangerous conditions you stumble upon (figuratively only, we hope) out there in Tortland.

Legal Education
Collecting any and all amusing tidbits related to legal education.

Harmless Error
McClurg's twisted legal humor column ran for more than four years in the American Bar Association Journal.