Hey, Nike, Warn Me These Shoes Are Dangerous Weapons!

In the past, we here at Abnormal Use have been critical of failure to warn claims.  To all of those claims, we now apologize.  Compared to the new suit against Nike , these other claims are as monumental as Marbury v. Madison.  According to a report out of NBC News, Sirgiorgio Clardy, an Oregon-based pimp sentenced to 100 years in prison for brutally beating a john with a Nike shoe has filed suit against the company alleging that Nike failed to warn that its shoes could be used as a dangerous weapon.  Apparently, had Nike provided such a warning, Clardy may have refrained from repeatedly stomping on the face of a client.   He is seeking $100 million due to Nike’s perceived omission.

Clardy apparently got the wise idea to sue Nike based on the jury’s classification of his shoes as a “dangerous weapon” in the criminal trial in order to ensure he received a maximum sentence.   We imagine if Clardy found some way to inflict the same injuries on the victim with a plastic spoon, it would have arrived the same classification.  Thankfully for Nike’s sake, it was not a party to the criminal suit and shouldn’t be deprived of the opportunity to protect its interests civilly.

Our criticism of failure to warn claims is the notion that requiring warning labels for many of these allegations is superfluous.  Many hazards are just too obvious to necessitate a warning.  This case takes the notion to the stratosphere.  We have watched enough episodes of “The Walking Dead to know that almost any object can be used as a weapon if the assailant is creative.  When a criminal uses an object in a way no reasonable person intended, then there is no need to warn of the horrid use. We understand why manufacturers should warn of certain dangers; those warnings serve a necessary purpose.  We doubt, however, that anybody would see Clardy’s suit as analogous to those situations.

We would say that we will keep you updated as this case progresses, but we all know how it will turn out.

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