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Stupid lawsuits.

From CNN: Girl, 7, got serious infection after swallowing Mattel magnets in 2005

Let's break it down:
- Magnets fall off of toy
- Kid swallows magnets
- Magnets do what magnets do, and stick together in her intestines
- Kid gets sick
- Mom sues toymaker

Hold up.

Paige, who will be 10 in November, required two weeks of hospitalization for treatment of her infection and return trips to the doctor every few weeks for months thereafter, May said.

In all, the treatment cost about $40,000.

"I went straight to a lawyer," she [the mother] added.

Lady, your kid ate magnets. Read that one more time, if you will. Your kid. Ate magnets. Not just one, but multiple. And when you find out, what do you do? Frivolous lawsuit, of course - it's the American way.

This is wrong on so many levels. First of all, how about educating your child not to eat pieces of her toys? At age 7, she should be FAR past the "let's put things in our mouth" phase, anyway. As a parent, I check my child's toys for possible hazards before handing it over to him - did that ever occur to you? I guess not, given this quote from dear old Mom regarding how this ordeal affected her toy buying habits: “I inspect things more, and there’s certain things now I won’t allow them to play with no more — nothing with magnets, nothing that I think is going to fall apart.” Shouldn't this have been step 2 in your parenting plan, genius - right after explicitly telling little Paige not to eat her toys? Even better, how about.... and this is really going out on a limb... keeping an eye on her so those magnets never get in her mouth to begin with? I mean, if your kid is dumb enough at 7 years old to eat a magnet, she obviously requires more supervision than she is being given. Tough lesson to learn, but I fail to see how Mattel should shoulder the medical bills for your parental neglect.

What a great example this mother is setting. Rather than take responsibility for your/your child's actions and the financial liability associated with them, you can just sue someone! This is just another reason that there should be a license requirement and an associated intelligence test before people are allowed to have children.

Look - kids do stupid things all the time. As a parent and a former kid myself, I can attest to this, so I am willing to cut the girl a hell of a lot more slack than her mother. I recall jumping off of high places, using an umbrella as a parachute at age 7. If I'd broken an arm or leg, should my parents have sued Totes for making an umbrella that wouldn't allow me to float gently to the ground like Mary Poppins? I guess using this woman's reasoning, they should have sued Julie Andrews for putting the idea in my head, but that's really beside the point.

I feel genuinely sorry for this kid - not only did she get gravely ill for basically doing the stupid things that kids sometimes do, but she's got a greedy, litigious witch for a mother. Double whammy.