Personal injury writer asks, "Can I sue?"

As a compensation claim writer for a solicitor's firm I really should know better, but today I have suffered distinct personal injury after consuming one too many glasses of white wine at the office Christmas party. I have suffered horribly today, with all sorts of nasty pains and discomfort. Now before anyone shouts of-course you can't sue, I would like to offer up a plea that no-where on the label of the wine that my colleagues and I were drinking did it warn us that we might wake up the next morning feeling lousy. It did not advise us that drinking the bottle's contents would make it virtually impossible to eat the following day and also very hard to typw accuartely.

And before anyone says, "That's a ridiculous argument", I would like to offer up a few more of the ludicrous legal cases that occurred in 2008.

Negligent hair care
A US judge rejected a woman's claim against L'Oreal after using she had used a hair dye product that changed her hair from blonde to dark brown. She accused the cosmetics giant of negligence, claiming that the ordeal of her altered hair colour had caused her to suffer clinical depression and ruined her social life.

She said, "I stay at home more than ever [and] wear hats most of the time."

The judge said, in refusing compensation, that she had offered "no facts, no opinions and no standards" to support her case.

Double trouble for lawyer's clients
Identical twin sisters in Italy were prosecuted after a three year scam was rumbled by a client. The twins both held law degrees, one was a part-time judge and advocate. When the sister-judge found that she was double booked one day she asked her sister to step in and act as advocate in court, and so, she was able to claim fees for being in two places at once. The sisters were apparently very close and knew everything about each other's lives so that their subterfuge was totally imperceptible to event their closest associates.

The ruse was finally discovered when a client overheard the pair planning their movements to fulfil the judge's dual roles in two courts.

Bear necessities
A Macedonian beekeeper took a wild brown bear to court for stealing honey from his hives. The honey producer had tried various methods in an attempt to stop the thefts, but floodlighting the area and blaring out loud "turbo-folk" music did not deter the bear.

Eventually the beekeeper took legal action and won his claim. As there was no legal owner of the bear, the court deemed the state responsible and awarded £1,700 in compensation.

Personal injury pain of hangover
So, I'm not so sure that I don't have a case. With a really good personal injury solicitor behind me, I might just be able to blame the wine producers for my sorry state today. However, I'm not so sure I could say that I drank totally responsibly and we did have a jolly good time, so maybe the pain today was worth it. I'll think again about the compensation claim.

Can I claim?