Courts play a critical role in society. A justice system, however, that permits extremely frivolous (and extremely costly) lawsuits demonstrates there is a great deal of room for improvement. Everyone pays the prices for lawsuit abuses. The Heartland Institute looks at a few:

An 18-year-old high school student in shop class attached an electrical cord to one of his nipples with an alligator clamp, while a classmate used another alligator clamp to attach the cord to the student’s other nipple. A third student plugged the cord into an electrical wall socket.

The resulting three-second shock knocked the student to the ground and briefly stopped his heart. The boy survived but allegedly suffered short-term memory loss and brain damage.

Naturally, he’s suing the school and the teacher for failing to warn him it could be dangerous to play with electrical cords.