The Mutilated Hand
Anytown, U.S.A. The blazing drunk blacksmith, nearly insensate from all the alcohol he had imbibed, tripped over his anvil and fell. A foul-tempered brawler at the best of times, he flew into a blind rage— face contorted in fury, he roared terrible expletives and before we could count to five he had bashed the anvil with five or six crunching blows in rapid succession. A few passers-by were sickened to the stomach by the cracking, smashing noises. The jolt of unbearable, excruciating pain and the sight of his mangled, mashed fist were nearly simultaneous. The blacksmith piteously screamed for help. Within two or three days, news of the incident had spread among the small town’s inhabitants. Public opinion swiftly coalesced around the blacksmith. Indeed, even though the now-pitiable mutilated blacksmith had been an unpopular man, the consensus among the townsfolk was that the anvil had done wrong, with the accusatory cries led by none other than the blacksmith himself. The anvil was reviled and became an object of loathing. Then the injury-accident attorneys moved in. Their job was straightforward. ‘Exhibit A’ was the Mutilated Hand; ‘Exhibit B’ was neither offered nor needed. And when the attorneys obtained a million-dollar judgment against the anvil’s maker, no-one was surprised: for was the anvil not responsible for the poor blacksmith’s mangled, mashed hand? [Postscript: The anvil’s makers could not come up with the one million dollars and filed for bankruptcy. After a judicial review it was decreed that the million-dollar judgment in favour of the blacksmith would have to be satisfied by the municipality and the town council.]