Bill Baxter wrote: > On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 7:09 AM, Steven Schveighoffer <schvei...@yahoo.com> > wrote: >> On Mon, 30 Mar 2009 18:03:02 -0400, Bill Baxter <wbax...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> Peanuts aren't actually nuts, you know. They're legumes. So there >>> might well be a case where the lable said "100% peanuts" and someone >>> allergic to nuts ate up, knowing that peanuts aren't in fact nuts. >> If someone was allergic to nuts, and they are going around eating peanuts >> because technically they aren't nuts, I'd say they were in fact nuts :) >> >> I'd be hugely hugely surprised if any jury awarded a judgement based on >> that. > > Yeh, I'm not saying I think they would, or even should win, just that > the idea of someone suing over peanuts containing nuts is not quite as > ridiculous, self-contradictory, and unbelievable as it first sounds. > In the US at least all kinds of foods that aren't nuts contain the > disclaimer "This product may contain nuts". I suspect the prevalence > of such labels is because of some lawsuit at some point.
People allergic to (pea)nuts are sometimes so sensitive that the trace crumbs left in the processing machinery from a different run are enough to cause reactions. That said, in /Inferno/ and /Escape From Hell/, Niven & Pournelle have a lawyer in the Eighth Circle, Fifth Bolgia (Barrators and Grafters) who “enriched himself from those who did not put silly warnings on lawn mowers”. There is Justice to be had… —Joel Salomon
