by Jacquelyn Horkan, Editor
January 2003

WHEELING AND DEALING

Do your employees conduct business over cell phones while driving? If so, you could become the target of a lawsuit.

The pursuit of deep pockets by plaintiff lawyers in cases of accidents caused by talking-while-driving employees is just out of the starting blocks. A Pennsylvania lawsuit was recently resolved when investment firm Smith, Barney paid a $500,000 settlement to the family of a motorcyclist who was killed by one of the firm’s brokers who was allegedly talking to a client when the accident occurred. A Minnesota jury ruled on the other hand, that a psychiatric nurse’s employer was not liable for damages in an accident that occurred when the nurse reached for her cell phone after her daughter paged her. The employer was excused from liability because answering the phone was not considered a part of the nurse’s job.

Traffic accidents are not the only concern, however. The distractions caused by the gadgets of modern life — from two-way pagers to beepers to PDAs — could end up opening a whole new class of negligence lawsuits. One lawyer wonders if an employee would be covered by workers’ compensation if he were so busy typing into a two-way pager that he walked into the path of an oncoming bus. A California winery has banned the use of mobile phones during work hours to prevent mishaps that might ruin a batch of wine or result in contamination.

Prohibiting the use of cell phones on the job may not be practical and, in some circumstances, could be counterproductive as employees simply ignore policies viewed as overly punitive. Legal experts recommend that employers consult with their attorneys to develop policies that could help lessen the risk of future lawsuits.

 

THE GOOD OL’ DAYS

In a day-before-Thanksgiving editorial for Investor’s Business Daily, Stephen Moore asked, “If by magic you could transplant yourself back into time, when would you have rather lived in history than today?” Before you embark on your journey to a more exotic and glamorous time and place, Moore offers a few reminders that the good old days never were.

• For thousands of years of human existence, the average life expectancy was 25 to 30 years.
  
  

• The average global per capita income for much of humanity march through history was about $200 per year.
  
  

• Travel speeds reached a high of five miles per hour for most of our existence.
  
  

• A child born in 1950 was two to three times likelier to die than a child born today.
  
  

• For the first half of the last century the leading causes of death were typhoid, smallpox, tuberculosis, diphtheria, and diarrhea.

Ain’t progress a dandy thing?

 

HAIR TODAY

Poor Isabel Goetz. She’s a hairstylist to the rich and famous at the Washington, D.C. branch of ritzy Cristophe Salon. If the salon’s name sounds familiar, you’re remembering the infamous May 1993 incident when two of the Los Angeles International Airport’s four runways were shut down for an hour while President Bill Clinton received a $200 haircut aboard Air Force One from Cristophe himself.

The juncture between White House and hair salon has yet again shed a less than flattering light on Cristophe and his minions. The Drudge Report (www.drudgereport.com) twigged Sen. John Kerry (D-Massachusetts), a 2004 presidential hopeful, for unseemly vanity: his thick gray locks are tended by Isabel Goetz, who charges $150 a clip. Embarrassed by the revelation, Kerry quickly revealed that he only pays $75 a visit.

Unfortunately for Isabel, a District of Columbia ordinance forbids gender-priced pricing. If Kerry is paying half the price of Isabel’s most famous client, Hillary Clinton, the hair stylist is in violation of the D.C. Human Rights Act. In other words, Clinton, one of the most powerful women in the world, is being victimized by her stylist.

Leave aside the question of whether Kerry’s hair looks worth a million bucks, much less $75, or whether the National Organization of Women will condemn Kerry for his break from feminist orthodoxy. Can’t we just agree that gender-based pricing laws are frivolous? After all, if Hillary Clinton doesn’t think she’s getting her money’s worth, couldn’t she just find another hair stylist?

Jacquelyn Horkan is editor of Florida Business Insight, Associated Industries of Florida’s on-line magazine (e-mail: jhorkan@aif.com).