"Avoid Death" 2007 Wackiest Warning Label

This week winners were named in the Michigan Lawsuit Abuse (M-LAW) eleventh annual Wackiest Warning Labels contest. The winner, submitted by Kevin Soave of Farmington Hills, Michigan adorned a small tractor and stated the stunningly obvious, "Danger: Avoid Death." Pictures of all of the winners, past and present are available for your pleasure at the website to which I've included a link. Soave took home $500 dollars and a copy of the best selling book "Remove Child Before Folding," the title alluding to a past winner, which was a warning label on a stroller.

M-LAW started the contest as a way of calling attention for the need to reform our legal system in order to end abusive lawsuits. Since it's inception the contest has become quite popular with people from around the country contributing warnings the need for which is nearly inconceivable to the rational mind. Only one thing could improve the laughability of the contest, and that would be publishing the picture of the person who made each of these labels a necessity. After all, each of these labels could only have been the result of a lawsuit in which someone had actually done the warned against activity.

The second wackiest warning label of 2007 was sent in by the Turin family of Greensburg, Pennsylvania, who will split the $250 dollar prize three ways. Their submission is the warning label on an iron on t-shirt transfer, which warns, "Do not iron while wearing shirt." If only the person to whom this was not obvious could be named. It would probably entail another lawsuit, though. Sadly this one also raises the unpleasant possibility that someone tried this on a shirt being worn by a child, since it's hard to imagine an adult who would consent to the experiment and it would be hard to do on yourself. Child endangerment is a specter hinted at by many of the warnings.