Inane lawsuits breed in this country like rabbits at the height of mating season. Mimicking dramas that may very well have been ripped from the more outrageous episodes of  the hit TV series, Boston Legal, we have seen:

 

1.  The woman who’d sued McDonald’s for the coffee that had scalded her as she shot out of the drive-through.  Since she a.) didn’t order iced coffee, b.) would have doubtless complained over lukewarm java, and c.) happened to be driving while sipping, who, truly was the culpable party here?

 

2.  The notably overweight chaps who took legal action against another fast food chain. Were they really so blissfully unaware of the mountain of medical evidence demonstrating that a diet rich in fried animal proteins and fats will, yes, adversely affect one’s health?   And most recently,

 

3.  The class action suit brought against the restaurant chain, Denny’s, for packing as much sodium and associated risk of stroke into a typical meal as the AMA recommends the average person consume over the course of four and a half days.  After one single mouth full of salt, why did any of these patrons ever go back for more and thereby create their own health risk?

 

Now we have the case of one Trina Thompson who walked out of Monroe College, Bronx, New York, with a Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology this past April and now brings a $70,000 suit against the school. Why? Because here it is, early August, and she is still jobless!  The case went to the Bronx Supreme Court, where the 27-year-old plaintiff quoted promises made via the college’s website, including assistance by way of career counselors, resume preparation, and other resources normally accessed by serious job seekers.  Thompson insists that the $70,000 she seeks in restitution equates to her investment (tuition).  While the trial rages on and the school’s spokesperson, Gary Axelbank, avows that the suit is “completely without merit,” this case burns us normal folk as surely as that careless aforementioned woman’s offensive cup of joe.

 

Is Thompson justified in her attempts to collect what she feels is owed to her?   The media runneth over with news of mega-billion-dollar bailouts, entire industries whose chestnuts have been pulled from open fires, and executives who still reap obscene bonuses in order to offset Washington’s mandated freezing of their over-inflated salaries.  Did all of this thievery, usury, and rewards for the unscrupulous work on Thompson, ticking her off slowly, like the timer on a bomb, until she exploded all over her alma mater?

 

Is the school truly responsible for her lack of employment?  Could a poor resume, unprofessional interview demeanor, or an unfocused job search be the true culprit(s)?    Did she really mean to sue the United States government for not putting stopgaps in place that would have slowed our economy’s long-term illness, and did the attorneys she may have consulted previously laugh themselves silly at such a pipe dream until she wound up on the doorstep of the one legal eagle eagerly salivating, “Let’s go for it!”?

 

Although the legal decision has yet to be handed down, rational beings would assume that such a precedent would ultimately break the backbone of higher education in this country.  If the judge rules in the plaintiff’s favor, higher education may, indeed, cease to exist as every unemployed and disgruntled Tom, Dick, and Harriet crawling out of the woodwork demands total tuition reimbursement from the schools that placed the sheepskins into their palms.

 

Think of the ramifications for our entire system of education.  Parents could sue pre-schools if their children are denied access to quality elementary schools (and later, quality high schools and colleges) as a result of sub-standard academic performance. They could cite not only mental anguish (theirs, not their kids’) but could play upon the jurors’ heartstrings by projecting their progeny’s lives spent, oh, doling out steaming hot coffee to careless customers instead of bellowing behind boardroom tables for government bail outs.

 

And what of those students who attend art school and learn all the techniques, yet emerge as far removed from the next Picasso as Earth is from Jupiter?  Or the would-be, rigorously trained ballerinas born with all the grace of wildebeests and not a snowball’s chance in hell of ever landing a job with The Geoffrey Ballet?  How about cooking schools, music schools, community colleges, or targeted-training establishments, such as those that offer vocational programs in secretarial science, computer graphics, electronics, network administration and engineering: schools that provide the very same resources to their graduates as did Monroe College to Ms. Thompson?  Where will it end?  More importantly, how will it end? 

 

Surely, the judge will see the madness inherent in this suit as well as the broader picture.  But, in an age where the lady with the scalding coffee won her case, in an age when taxpayers had their blood and retirement funds sucked out of with the full blessing of their lawmakers, I would not want to lay odds on the judge’s decision.