don't blame me Our national motto should not be "In God We Trust." It should be "Not My Fault." (Or maybe, "I Just Work Here.") Inspired by Dan White, who concocted the infamous high-blood-sugar Twinkie Defense to explain why he killed the mayor of San Francisco, I set out to document our blameless society. I found hundreds of examples. The buck never stops here.
Spurred on by the legal profession, we've developed thousands of ways to shirk responsibility. If you can profit, all the better. Rich tobacco companies are a favorite scapegoat — warning labels have appeared on cigarettes since 1966, yet juries continue to give victims astounding awards. A recent find: Richard Boeken, 56, who smoked two packs of Marlboros a day for 40 years, developed lung cancer in 1999. Two years later, a jury told Philip Morris to pay him over $3 billion in damages. For that money, I'll eat tar.
These days people look for warning labels on everything. When one guy failed to negotiate a milkshake and his steering wheel and crashed his car, he sued McDonald's. Where was the label on the shake, he asked, warning him not to slurp and drive? A student who fell from a window while mooning passersby sued the university because it hadn't posted a caution sign. (Here's my suggestion: "NO ASSES BEYOND THIS POINT.") A bowler who slipped on popcorn sued the alley for $50,000 for not having "watch-for- kernals-on-the-floor" warnings — which could have been placed besides the "don't-drop-the-ball-on-your-foot" sign.
I kid you not: One guy who munched into a Peanut M&M that didn't have a peanut sued the candymaker because he bit his lip. A party guest who tripped over a dog in a kitchen sued the dog's owner for failing to inform him that he would be walking in the house "at his own risk." An elderly woman who injured her hands while trying to turn on the lights demanded the maker of the Clapper give her $50,000. I applaud her ingenuity.
If you're looking to weasel out of something, vague medical diagnoses are always handy. A psychiatrist who told a patient she needed to suck his nipples because she hadn't been breast-fed (actually, that's quite clever) blamed an undiagnosed case of "moral insanity." A professor who collected his mother's government checks for years after her death announced that he suffered from "extreme procrastination behavior." A man who beat his wife with a wrench pleaded "psychological emasculation." Join the club. A diabetic burglar pointed to undiagnosed "sugar psychosis" — he had eaten cotton candy before the crime. He and Dan White would have made good bunk mates in the joint.
You remember Aaron McKinney — he's one of the two killers who left Matthew Shephard on a fence in Wyoming. What you may not remember is the affliction that he says led him to kill — "gay panic" (there are no reported cases of straight panic). His excuse didn't get him anywhere, but Jimmy Watkins, who shot his wife and her lover, drove away, realized he had more ammo, and returned to finish off his wife, pointed to "sudden passion" and got probation. As did the woman who embezzled $240,000 and argued that she had been self-medicating her depression — through shopping. In another successful defense, a well-known romance writer, accused of plagiarism, blamed an unnamed "psychological problem I never even suspected I had" — a poetic, all-purpose excuse that I written on a card and have tucked into my wallet. It was so inspired it makes you wonder if the writer (who continues to churn out bestsellers) was falsely accused.
Among athletes, golfers lead the way in pointing the other way. The wind, the green, the ball, the club — anything but their own dismal abilities. My favorite dufer won $40,000 from a course after her shot ricocheted off an obstacle and hit her in the head ("Fore…head!"). On a different course, an intoxicated golfer died after falling from a moving golf cart. His widow sued for $15 million, arguing that the cart should have had seat belts and doors … and perhaps one less cupholder.
Some people do accept blame, but too often it's because they have nothing left to lose. (Best line by a convicted killer at sentencing: "I accept responsibility. If I lose my life, I can live with that.") My favorite upstanding citizen has to be Kenneth Lane of Elk River, Minnesota, who was discovered by police burying a large mound of carpeting for no apparent reason. "I don't know what to say," he said. "You got me. I can't even make up an excuse." I'm still not sure what you were doing, Ken, but three cheers for owning up to it.