It's a rough world out there. Step outside and you could break a leg slipping on your doormat. Light up the stove and you could burn down the house. Luckily, if the doormat or stove failed to warn of coming disaster, a successful lawsuit might compensate you for your troubles. Or so the thinking has gone since the early 1980s, when juries began holding more companies liable for their customers' misfortunes.

Feeling threatened, companies responded by writing ever-longer warning labels, trying to anticipate every possible accident. Today, stepladders carry labels several inches long that warn, among other things, that you might-surprise! --fall off. The label on a child's Batman cape cautions that the toy "does not enable user to fly."

While warnings are often appropriate and necessary--the dangers of drug interactions, for example--and many are required by state or federal regulations, it isn't clear that they actually protect the manufacturers and sellers from liability if a customer is injured. About 50 percent of the companies lose when injured customers take them to court.

Now the tide appears to be turning. As personal injury claims continue as before, some courts are beginning to side with defendants, especially in cases where a warning label probably wouldn't have changed anything. In May, Julie Nimmons, president of Schutt Sports in Illinois, successfully fought a lawsuit involving a football player who was paralyzed in a game while wearing a Schutt helmet. "We're really sorry he has become paralyzed, but helmets aren't designed to prevent those kinds of injuries, "says Nimmons. The jury agreed that the nature of the game, not the helmet, was the reason for the athlete's injury. At the same time, the American Law Institute--a group of judges, lawyers, and academics whose recommendations carry substantial weight-issued new guidelines for tort law stating that companies need not warn customers of obvious dangers or bombard them with a lengthy list of possible ones. "Important information can get buried in a sea of trivialities," says a law professor at Cornell law School who helped draft the new guidelines. If the moderate end of the legal community has its way, the information on products might actually be provided for the benefit of customers and not as protection against legal liability.

51. What were things like in 1980s when accidents happened?
[A] Customers might be relieved of their disasters through lawsuits.
[B] Injured customers could expect protection from the legal system.
[C] Companies would avoid being sued by providing new warnings.
[D] Juries tended to find fault with the compensations companies promised.

[答案] B

[解題思路]

本題的對應信息在文章的第一段最后一句話"Or so the thinking has gone since the early 1980s, when juries began holding more companies liable for their customers' misfortunes"（大約自80年代初以來這種想法開始日漸流行，因為從那時起陪審團開始認為更多的公司應對其顧客所遭受的不幸負責），因此B選項符合題意。C和D選項與該句的意思不符。至于A選項，該段第四句提到"Luckily, if the doormat or stove failed to warn of coming disaster, a successful lawsuit might compensate you for your troubles"（但是假如門墊或爐灶上沒有警示語告訴你可能發生的危害，你或許可以就自己所受的傷害通過法律訴訟，成功地獲得賠償），但獲得賠償并不意味著A選項的relieved of their disasters（免除了他們的災難），因為無論如何賠償都是事后的，災難已經發生了、無需通過賠償避免。

[題目譯文]

在20世紀80年代的時候，如果發生事故會怎么樣？
[A] 消費者可能通過訴訟從而免受災難。
[B] 受傷的顧客可望獲得法律制度的保護。
[C] 公司通過提供新的警示語以避免遭起訴。
[D] 陪審團更會從公司承諾的賠償中挑毛病。

53. The case of Schutt helmet demonstrated that__
[A] some injury claims were no longer supported by law
[B] helmets were not designed to prevent injuries
[C] product labels would eventually be discarded
[D] some sports games might lose popularity with athletes

[答案] A

[解題思路]

本題的例子主要在文章的第四段，該題前兩句就提出"Now the tide appears to be turning. As personal injury claims continue as before, some courts are beginning to side with defendants, especially in cases where a warning label probably wouldn't have changed anything"（現在看來這種趨勢正在轉變。盡管個人傷害的指控一如既往還在繼續，但有些法庭已開始站到被告一方，特別是在處理那些即使有警示語也無法避免傷害的案件時），后面舉了Schull helmet的例子，用來論證該段開頭的觀點，因此正確選項是A。B選項就事論事，不是說明舉例的目的，因而是錯誤選項。C選項在文中沒有直接或者相關的表述，而D選項則與原文話題無關。

[題目譯文]

Schutt頭盔案證明           。
[A] 有些受傷索賠不再得到法律支持
[B] 頭盔不是用來預防受傷的
[C] 產品的警示語將最終被放棄
[D] 一些體育項目可能不再受運動員們歡迎

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