[skissane]

It isn’t always fraud or lying - you apply for insurance. Insurer asks you a million questions. One is “do you have a trampoline”? You honestly answer “No”. The fine print of the application form says you have to tell them if at any time your answers change. After a while, you forget it even asked you about a trampoline. Then, you get your kid a trampoline. Per insurance fine print, you are suppose to inform the insurer of this change in circumstances immediately, but you’ve forgotten that.

Also, it depends on the jurisdiction, but while the insurer can try to void the whole contract, courts don’t always let them do it, especially if the policyholder convinces the court it was an innocent mistake or oversight rather than a deliberate lie.

[tptacek]

This is not a good example of "fine print", because trampolines are notorious sources of injury. It's like if you added a pool to your property and didn't tell your insurer because you "forgot the fine print". You can plead that, but if I was your neighbor, I'd be rooting for the insurer. Knowing about the dangers of things you set up on your property is on you.

[skissane]

We used to have a trampoline. We never once told our insurer about it. When I first applied for the insurance (at the same time we bought the house), I have no memory of being asked if we had one (we didn't at the time). I don't remember ever seeing that question from them, although I can't be completely certain it wasn't on some piece of paper and I didn't notice it. If they never ask, I'm under no obligation to tell them.

[tptacek]

Look, I hear you, but at some point this has to be on you. The CPSC has a thing dedicated to trampolines. The Mayo Clinic has articles about it. It is a huge cause of injuries of minors around the country. I'll grant that this is slightly more obscure an issue than swimming pools, but there are tons of swimming pool buyers who would make similar claims ("nobody told me swimming pools were that risky, this is just fine print mumbo jumbo"), and I don't think anyone here would entertain those.

[skissane]

Well, I'm not in America, and I'm wondering if this is an American thing?

I just checked my insurance policy. The word "trampoline" never once occurs in it. I don't think my insurer cares about trampolines.

If I think about it: given the absurdly large payouts for some injury lawsuits in the US, I understand why American insurers might be particularly sensitive to things that might induce injury, like trampolines. Given Australian courts tend to be much more modest in the damages they award, I can see why Australian insurers might not see them as something worth paying any special attention to.

Also, even in the US: it might seem obvious to someone who grew up there, but for an immigrant from a country with a different insurance system, it wouldn’t be obvious

[Eisenstein]

To explain the lawsuit issue, here is a perfectly plausible scenario and how it could play out somewhere in the USA.:

1. A person is at a friend's house for dinner

2. Upon leaving to go home, they trip and fall trying to navigate an unlit path to their car

3. Their injury lands them in the hospital and requires a week or so of recovery time in which they could not work, and as they contract out they lose that money

4. The health insurance that fully covered their injury, looks at the medical records and finds that the injury occurred on another property and calls the people involved and finds out about the unlit path

5. They deny payment for the medical treatments and tell the injured person to sue the friend for medical payment because they are at fault and they have home owner's insurance

6. Forced to sue the friend or be out tens of thousands of dollars, the injured person adds to the claim for lost wages (hey, the friend isn't paying for it anyway, the insurance is)

This is how you end up with such lawsuits that the USA is famous for -- people are forced to sue other people in order to not go bankrupt, and things get piled on that.

[nothercastle]

It’s critical in the USA to never tell your health insurance that you got injured in a way that may cause them to sue. Because health insurance is not actual insurance it’s almost always best to assume fault for your injury.

[tptacek]

I mean, sure, but really the simpler issue --- and this is an issue in Australia too, but I don't know how it's handled --- is that some kid is going to double bounce on the trampoline at a party, land funny, break their neck, and be paralyzed for life. Average payouts for paralysis cases are in the high millions.

[skissane]

> 4. The health insurance that fully covered their injury, looks at the medical records and finds that the injury occurred on another property and calls the people involved and finds out about the unlit path

In Australia, if you are seriously injured, you will be sent to a public hospital, where the government will fit the bill for your treatment. If it is a workplace injury or a motor vehicle accident, they might seek to recover costs from the compulsory private insurance in those cases, but otherwise they wouldn't. Many people also have private health insurance, but the private system usually doesn't get involved in accidents and trauma, it prefers to focus on things with greater predictability and profitability (e.g. hip replacements).

Every country is different, but I suspect in many other countries with either public or hybrid public/private systems, it is going to be a similar story

> This is how you end up with such lawsuits that the USA is famous for -- people are forced to sue other people in order to not go bankrupt, and things get piled on that.

It isn't just about lawsuits, it is also about damages payouts. In the US, there is a very broad constitutional right to a jury trial, which extends to civil lawsuits; and (in many cases) the law entrusts the jury, not just with deciding whether the plaintiff has factually proven their case, but also with awarding damages. American lawyers have mastered the art of emotionally convincing jurors to make big awards (especially if the defendant is a big corporation, or an unsavoury private individual). And big awards create precedent for bigger awards in the future. Even though judges can reduce jury damages awards, and often do, I think that only partly reverses the impact of juries in encouraging their growth. Also, the fact that many states have elected judges makes them hesitate about reducing jury damages too much, since that might offend the voters and threaten their re-election chances

Compare Australia: we also have a constitutional right to a jury trial, but it only applies to the most serious federal crimes; it does not apply to less serious federal crimes, nor state crimes (regardless of seriousness), and there is no constitutional right to a jury in civil cases. Sometimes, you can get yourself a jury in a civil case (depending on various complex legal factors), but in practice the majority of civil trials don't have one. And even when there is a jury, the norm is the jury only decides whether the plaintiff has proven the facts of their case, and damages is wholly up to the judge. Judges tend to be much more conservative in awarding damages, and as a result, the runaway damages inflation which has happened in the US, has been far less of a thing in Australia. And all judges in Australia are appointed (both state and federal), and the process is mostly insulated from politics, so Australian judges are far less afraid to offend public opinion

[firesteelrain]

It is an American thing and the WSJ is generally American articles so you are going to get a lot of American-related responses.

[hattmall]

I just bought homeowners, it didn't ask anything about trampolines. Am I expected to call them up and inform about one? They specifically ask about a pool and if it is fenced or not.

[EricE]

There were some neighbors down the street from my parents that put a trampoline right next to several decorative boulders. These weren't small - same height as the trampoline (at least 4 feet) and very jagged. Thankfully it disappeared again within a couple of days but my god can people be STUPID.

[BeFlatXIII]

Glad you’re not my neighbor.

[WalterBright]

Our economy runs on contracts. If one is able to avoid the terms of the contract by claiming one didn't read it, the whole system falls apart.

(When I bought a house, the sales contract was maybe 50 pages. I went to the escrow company to sign. The escrow agent was visibly annoyed that I leaned back in the chair and set about reading every page. One of the pages that needed to be signed said nothing but "I have read and understood this contract.")

[skissane]

> If one is able to avoid the terms of the contract by claiming one didn't read it, the whole system falls apart.

Except, Courts have ruled that you can, at least sometimes, get out of the fine print of a contract by claiming you didn't read it. For example, see the notable 1962 Supreme Court of California case, Steven v. Fidelity Casualty Co [0].

In 1957, plaintiff purchased a life insurance policy covering plane crashes, from a vending machine in Los Angeles, with his wife as the beneficiary. His itinerary took him from LA to Chicago, and from there to Dayton, Ohio. On his return from Dayton to Chicago, he'd scheduled a one night stopover in Terre Haute, Indiana. In the morning, he went to the airport in Terre Haute, and was distressed to discover the flight had been cancelled due to technical issues, and he was going to miss his connection in Chicago. The airline agent referred him to a charter airline, who organised a charter flight for him and a handful of other passengers back to Chicago. Sadly, the charter flight crashed, and he died.

His widow sought to claim on the life insurance policy. The insurer denied the claim, on the grounds that the fine print of the policy said that it only applied to scheduled air carriers, not charter flights, and hence the flight on which the insured died was excluded. His widow sued the insurance company in the name of her deceased husband. The trial court sided with the insurer, on the grounds that this clause was clearly stated in the fine print of the policy, which the policyholder was expected to have read, and he had signed to say that he had.

However, on appeal, the Supreme Court of California overturned the judgement, and ruled for the widow. It held that, for consumer insurance contracts, any clause or exclusion which the policyholder could not have reasonably expected, must be pointed out prominently, not buried in the fine print. Since, it ruled, the policyholder had no particular reason to expect the exclusion of charter flights, and the insurer had not prominently stated that exclusion in the policy (e.g. by using a larger font), it was not legally binding.

And, from what I understand, the rule established in this 1962 case is followed in California law to this day, and has also been adopted by the courts of several other US states

[0] https://casetext.com/case/steven-v-fidelity-casualty-co

[WalterBright]

Frankly, the court ruled wrongly. The ruling throws all kinds of things in a contract in doubt, and that's no good for either party.

Why should anyone think the fine print is irrelevant? Everything in a contract is relevant, or it wouldn't be in the contract.

[theluketaylor]

That makes sense in a vacuum, but in the real world not everyone is a lawyer and corporations have a vast power imbalance compared with a member of the general public. It's incredibly easy to bury something surprising among many other clauses, such as only scheduled flights being covered and not charters. The idea certain potentially surprising clauses need to more prominent seems pretty reasonable on balance. The onus is still on the signing party to read them, but they are afforded the opportunity to notice among many clauses these are ones that deserve special attention.

That means there will always be an argument around what a reasonable party would consider a surprising clause, but contract law disputes deal with nuance, edge cases, and what a reasonable party would expect all the time. With rulings like this corporations will air on the side of caution when taking big swings in forming their agreements since litigation is so costly and the outcome so uncertain. Consumers gain a little power back (though still far from equal footing).

This should only apply when there are large power imbalances, such as individual people entering agreements with vast multinational corporations. When big corps ink deals with each other caveat emptor should reign; they have equal opportunity to review and understand the terms and therefore have to live with the consequences.

[WalterBright]

> The onus is still on the signing party to read them, but they are afforded the opportunity to notice among many clauses these are ones that deserve special attention.

It's not unreasonable to expect a party to a contract to read all of it. If one's case is based on "I didn't read it", the other party should prevail.

> Consumers gain a little power back (though still far from equal footing).

The consumer can always say "no". An important feature of a free market is there are no forced contracts. Saying "no" is the ultimate power.

[skissane]

> It's not unreasonable to expect a party to a contract to read all of it.

Walter, you are a very smart guy. And this is a site which attracts people with above average intelligence and education. It is easy to forget that not everyone is as smart or well-educated as we are.

I know a guy who has been diagnosed with borderline intellectual functioning (i.e. his IQ is above the cutoff for intellectual disability, but only just). He blames it on his alcoholic mother drinking when she was pregnant. He's able to live independently, he drives a truck for a living. But no way is he ever going to be able to comprehend all by himself the dense fine-print of a contract. The law has to look after people like him, not just people like you or me. There are literally millions of people like him out there – around 13% of the population has an IQ in the borderline range.

> The consumer can always say "no". An important feature of a free market is there are no forced contracts. Saying "no" is the ultimate power.

Some products, people need to buy to meet their basic human needs and to function in society. For many of those products, there are only a small number of vendors available. If all of them demand you sign an incomprehensible barrage of legalese, you can't realistically say "no" to doing so. It might not be a "forced contract" in an abstract theoretical sense, but it sure is in a practical sense.

[BeFlatXIII]

Why are parts of the contract allowed to be in different size typeface in the first place? There should only be headings and body text, no other sizes.