Spoilsport trial lawyers

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Many Americans must have thought it was a bad joke -- or a least a headline from the satirical online publication, the Onion. In Attleboro, Mass., an elementary school has banned tag, touch football, and "any other unsupervised chase game" that kids enjoyed at recess for generations.

How could such a thing happen? Where will it end? If tag is too dangerous, is hopscotch next? After all, all that jumping around can result twisted ankles and scraped knees. Scraped knees on playgrounds are hardly new, of course, and school officials are not suggesting otherwise. They're banning the fun and games for all students for one reason: They fear injury-related lawsuits. Score another "victory" for Trial Lawyers Inc.

As a long-time observer of our lawsuit-crazed culture, I was not a bit surprised by this development. The only thing that surprises me is that it is still news.

This is, after all, the same city where school administrators went to war against dodgeball a few years back, and it not the first to target tag. Schools in Cheyenne, Wyo., and Spokane, Wash., have done the same, the Associated Press reminds us. Ditto a school outside Charleston, S.C., that has "outlawed all unsupervised contact sports."

In Attleboro, Willett Elementary School Principal Gaylene Heppe noted that recess, when kids are supposed to blow off a little steam, is also "a time when accidents can happen." It's also a time, as some policy critics have noted, where students can burn off a few calories and practice conflict resolution.

Think about it. Students are continuously warned about the risks of childhood obesity yet are now banned from running around at recess. It is easy to shake your head in disbelief (though not too hard, in order to avoid neck injuries), yet this is not a laughing matter. Indeed, what does it say about a society when tag is considered a high-risk activity?

A few things seem obvious to me. One is that risk avoidance has risen to an obsessive level. While the desire to avoid injury is of course natural, taking it to this extreme is self-defeating. Risk-taking is vital to success. A child who is taught that even playing tag is "too risky" is being prepared for life as a drone.

The larger and more disturbing point is that banning tag, in our legal environment, is quite reasonable. We live in an era of almost limitless litigation. While it's not necessary to recite the entire litany, trial lawyers have engineered lawsuits on behalf of people who spill coffee on themselves and criminals who are injured while committing crimes. Cereal makers and fast food chains are now targeted by trial lawyers concerned that these companies are forcing people to eat too much. The litigation honchos even want to sue Nickelodeon for running cereal ads that might cause kids to, heaven forbid, ask their parents to give them cereal for breakfast. I'm not making this up.

This is why I assume banning tag and touch football could become fairly common in public school systems -- unless we finally decide as a society we have had enough.

There are, in my opinion, two courses of action. One is that we can continue down the road we're on -- which will only get worse. Trial lawyers are always sniffing around for the slightest opportunity to sue, and right now we live in an environment when a "tag-related injury," in the right courtroom, could result in a multimillion-dollar settlement.

The better option is to recognize we can reform the legal system in a way that makes frivolous lawsuits much more difficult to pursue.

The tag ban is another reflection of the incredibly negative effect of trial lawyers on American life. We often hear about Hollywood's influence. But it's not Hollywood that has taken us to the point where kids can't even play tag. Until we put an end to their trial lawyers' game, I have a few words of advice to America's students:

Enjoy your hopscotch... while you can.

Steve Hantler is assistant general counsel at DaimlerChrysler Corp., senior fellow at Pacific Research Institute and chairman of the American Justice Partnership.