The vision of the anointed: the left and social policy

National Review, July 31, 1995 by Thomas Sowell

But after the vision of the anointed swept through the courts during the 1960s, people could be sued successfully whether they were negligent or not -- and in some cases, without even being proved to have had anything to do with whatever harm had occurred.

But this never happened to those in mascot groups. It happened to those in target groups. In a case during the tenure of Rose Bird as California's chief justice, an employee who was waiting for his employer to arrive and open for business used the time to work under the hood of his own car on a public street and was injured by a passing motorist -- and was then declared to be entitled to workman's compensation. When a man who was using a telephone in a booth near a highway was hit and injured by an out-of-control car, the telephone company was held liable for putting the booth in a vulnerable location -- as if any place near a highway was not vulnerable to a car going out of control. In one federal case, the producer of a herbicide was held responsible for the death of a worker who paid no attention to the warning label, even though that label said exactly what federal rules said that it should say.

Although the company had no legal choice except to word the label precisely as prescribed by the Environmental Protection Agency, the court ruled that ``the duty to provide an adequate warning of the danger was not met'' because the label's warnings about fatal consequences did not include the particular fatal consequence from which this individual died. Compliance with both federal laws prescribing the exact wording of the warning and state laws requiring more extensive warnings ``cannot be said to be impossible,'' according to the court, which reasoned: ``Chevron can continue to use the EPA-approved label and can at the same time pay damages to successful tort plaintiffs such as Mr. Ferebee; alternatively, Chevron can petition to EPA to allow the label to be made more comprehensive.'' Another helpful suggestion was that Chevron could simply stop selling this chemical in this state. In such cases, the courts often also exhibit another aspect of the vision -- presupposing far more knowledge and control than anyone ever possessed. In holding defendants responsible for harmful consequences which they did not cause, courts often relied on the new legal doctrine that these defendants could and should have prevented ``reasonably foreseeable'' harm, even if that harm resulted from someone else's reckless or irresponsible use of the product or service. In short, the targets had vast responsibilities placed on them, while the mascots had virtually none. Moreover, the sheer luck of life -- ``the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to,'' as Hamlet said -- disappeared as a factor. If something went wrong, someone was to blame, preferably someone with a ``deep pocket.'' THE family is inherently an obstacle to schemes for central control of social process. Therefore the anointed necessarily find themselves on a collision course with the family.