February 16, 2005 8:21 AM

Another DUMB@$$ AWARD wiener

Tsunami victims to sue French hotel chain Accor, Thai govt, US authorities

DUMB@$$ AWARD wieners #200: Herwig Hasslacher & cohorts

I suppose it was just a matter of time before the lawyers became involved, eh? We probably shouldn’t be too terribly surprised that someone saw the income potential in Southeast Asia’s December 26th tsunami. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 290,000 people died, so SOMEONE has to be held accountable, no? We’ll just have to find the parties with the deep pockets and hope they’ll settle.

Of course, we couldn’t possibly accept that sometimes, despite one’s best efforts, things happen. Can anyone really seriously state that warnings of the impending tsunami were knowingly and willfully withheld? Apparently, the ambulance-chasers handling this case have no qualms about doing so.

A disaster on the scale of the tsunami is something that cannot be anticipated nor adequately prepared for. Given that the damage occurred in Third World countries with exceedingly primitive communications systems, how can anyone have expected a warning to have been communicated in time to save remote coastal villages?

Somehow, it would appear that the lawyers have managed to convince their clients that their is someone they can hold responsible, regardless of the magnitude of the disasters and the difficulties of the defendants’ meeting these alleged obligations.

VIENNA (AFX) - A group of Austrian and German victims of the Asian tsunami disaster are to file a lawsuit demanding that Thailand, French hotel chain Accor (Paris: FR0000120404 - news) and US forecasters prove they reacted adequately to the disaster, their lawyers said.

The suit, naming Accor and the US-run tsunami early warning system in the Pacific as well as Thai authorities, will be filed in a New York district court this week, the lawyers said in Vienna.

‘We found that serious lapses were committed,’ said Herwig Hasslacher, one of the three lawyers for the group.

They said the suit was not, at present, designed to demand compensation but to uncover evidence that would prove negligence. The case was presented as the first of its kind arising out of the Dec 26 disaster, when a powerful undersea earthquake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra sent huge waves pounding into coastlines around the Indian Ocean.

Nearly 290,000 people died, including several thousand Western tourists who were holidaying in Indian Ocean resorts, notably in Thailand and Sri Lanka.

The suit will be filed on behalf of 15 Austrian and four German victims of the disaster. The targets are the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Washington and its Hawaii-based tsunami warning centre; the Accor group of hotels where some of the victims stayed; and the Thai government.

The NOAA is accused of having registered the earthquake but failed to alert Indian Ocean countries of the impending tsunamis as the Hawaii centre covered only the Pacific.

The lawyers said that if the NOAA and Thai authorities, which had their own information, had passed on their alerts in time, it would have enabled people on shorelines to flee inland.

‘We have evidence they did not warn us, even though they knew a quarter of an hour later about the strength and location of the quake, and although there is supposed to be a tsunami warning’ from 6.5 on the Richter scale, Hasslacher said. The quake measured 9.0.

And while they’re at it, why don’t these lawyers sue the Almighty (assuming, of course, that there actually IS one) for ultimatey being responsible for the death and destruction caused by the tsunami? As God’s human representative on Earth, it would seem that Pope John Paul would have a huge legal exposure on his hands. Perhaps the Vatican might want to file for bankruptcy in order to evade having to pay it’s share of damages? Of course, it wouldn’t be the first time the agents of the Catholic Church has done this recently, eh?

The idea that either NOAA or Accor can and/or should be held responsible for the damage and loss of life caused by the tsunami is laughable. Unfortunately, in this day and age all it takes is one persuasive lawyer who can convince a few suckers that there is money to be made off this tragedy, and you have yourself a lawsuit. If there is any justice in this world, Hasslacher and his cohorts will be laughed out of the courtroom and shamed. They deserve nothing less. Personally, I have a special place in Hell reserved for ambulance chasers like this.

Sometimes, I think Shakespeare’s Hamlet had the right idea: “First, we’ll kill all the lawyers….”

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on February 16, 2005 8:21 AM.

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