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TortsProf Blog Gets Golfing Gizmo as Gift

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Oh, we long for the days before products liability suits took away our lawn darts and all the rest of our fun.
Professor Bill Childs, professor at Western New England School of Law and author of TortsProf Blog, has this post, about receiving as a gift from a student a “Golfing Gizmo.”

[It’s a] device from the 1960s and 1970s that is the subject of the Hauter v. Zogarts case (534 P.2d 377 (Cal. 1975)) in David Owen et al.’s Products Liability and Safety casebook and possibly others. And they even found the same model and manual as is in the case, including the almost-blank-verse notation on the front: “COMPLETELY SAFE BALL WILL NOT HIT THE PLAYER.”

The device was such that you drove a golf ball attached to a cord, which of course made the golf ball come back at you. If it came back to the left, you had a slice; to the right, you had a hook. If your shot was perfect, you got zinged in the head and won a lawsuit. Perfectly safe.
The Golfing Gizmo in All Its Glory [TortsProf Blog]

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