A man from Charlotte, N.C., having purchased a case of very expensive cigars,
insured them against, among other things, fire. Within a month, having
smoked his entire stockpile, the man filed a claim against the insurance
company, stating that the cigars were "lost in a series of small fires."
The insurance company refused to pay, citing the obvious reason that the
man consumed the cigars in the normal fashion. The man sued...and won.
In delivering the ruling the judge, agreeing that the claim was frivolous,
stated nevertheless that the man held a policy from the company in which
it had warranted that the cigars were insurable and also guarenteed that
it would insure against fire, without defining what it cinsidered to be
"acceptable fire," and was obilged to pay the claim.
Rather than endure a lengthy and costly appeal process the insurance company
accepted the ruling and paid the man $15,000 for the rare cigars he lost
in "the fires." After he cashed the check, however, the company had him
arrested on 24 counts of arson. With his own insurance claim and testimony
from the previous case being used against him, the man was convicted of
intentionally burning his insured property and sentenced to 24 months in
jail and a $24,000 fine. |
 When
I was a youth I used to take all kinds of pledges, and do my best to keep
them, but I never could, because I didn't strike at the root of the habit--the
desire; I generally broke down within the month. Once I tried limiting
a habit. That worked tolerably well for a while. I pledged myself to smoke
but one cigar a day. I kept the cigar waiting until bedtime, then I had
a luxurious time with it. But desire persecuted me every day and all day
long; so, within the week I found myself hunting for larger cigars than
I had been used to smoke; then larger ones still, and still larger ones.
Within the fortnight I was getting cigars made for me--on a yet larger
pattern. They still grew and grew in size. Within the month my cigar had
grown to such proportions that I could have used it as a crutch. It now
seemed to me that a one-cigar limit was no real protection to a person,
so I knocked my pledge on the head and resumed my liberty. -Mark Twain's
(Samuel Clemens) "Following the Equator"- |
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