Santa and his elves found themselves in a spot of bother when a lady slipped on a plastic icicle in a department store’s Christmas Grotto and won the right to up to £30,000 in damages.
So not only does Santa have to keep a cheery disposition 24 hours a day, entertain the children, hand out presents and do his job of being old St Nick, he now has to keep an eye out for rogue plastic baubles and remove them swiftly in case someone slips and takes him and his grotto for all they’ve got.
I’m sorry, but what on earth happened to personal responsibility? Why the obsession nowadays for everything to be about getting as much money as you can out of people because it clearly ‘isn’t my fault?’
What happened to being responsible for your own actions? If you slip on a plastic icicle, or any other garment, it’s your own fault for not looking where you’re going in the first place.
Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and accept that sometimes these things just happen and accidents can occur.
Even if it isn’t just a case of picking yourself up and carrying on and you really have hurt yourself like the lady in the Grotto, accept that it was just an accident and unintentional. Don’t go looking to see who was to blame and say it is all their fault for not cleaning up properly.
Cases like this are why people are so scared to do anything nowadays in case someone, somewhere hurts themselves, cries and goes running to the nearest lawyer to see what they can get out of it.
Our primary school has banned the classic game of Tig in the infants ‘in case someone gets hurt.’
Probably scared to death that if little Tommy fell over and hurt himself, they’d get slapped with a lawsuit as they shouldn’t have been letting him run about (at playtime!) in the first place.
Come on people, start accepting responsibility for yourselves and your actions and realise that apart from a few exceptional circumstances, at the end of the day accidents can and will happen and it’s not always anyone else’s fault – and watch where you’re bleedin’ going in the future. 
Speaking as a mother who’s kids’ previous school banned footballs in case of injury, I couldn’t agree more! Having said that, I’m always on the look out for a crooked paving to trip up over so I can retire in style courtesy of some local council. Never thought of suing Santa, though…!
Ooh, if they banned football at ours my football obsessed 8 year old would be devastated! That’s ridiculous! All these silly claims are what leads to the bans of everything. It’s a wonder all us grown ups are still alive really, isn’t it?!
Poor Santa! That woman is definitely going on the naughty list. It truly is disgraceful. You’re completely right, people should be responsible for their actions. Santa should sue for breaking his decorations!
I couldn’t agree more!
completely agree its getting stupid
This is ridiculous. What happened to “watch where you are going”. It’s no wonder insurance premiums are so high with such stupidity occurring.
We live in a country riddled with a compensation culture. Everywhere we go we are ‘reminded’ that it’s always someone else’s fault and we are actively discouraged from taking responsibility for our actions. (I’m not implying you or your readers – otherwise you wouldn’t write this, and get these comments – but clearly a *HUGE* proportion of the population). It’s really sad.