Resumen de Have you been Warned?
This chapter is concerned with a Canadian court case. The background is that a man bought a butane-bottle-gas-fired BBQ that was designed only for outdoor use but he installed it indoors. Shortly afterwards it exploded and his son suffered third-degree burns. The purchaser decided to sue the manufacturer, who quite naturally denied responsibility. The case revolved around the adequacy of the warnings attached to and accompanying the BBQ.
In this chapter I first discuss the nature of warnings and the particular problems associated with product warnings. I draw on observations about, and evaluative criteria produced for, product warnings by Bethany Dumas, Roger Shuy and Peter Tiersma.
I then discuss in detail the four warning labels that were attached to the BBQ itself, in terms of their content, the strength of their message and likely inferences to be drawn. I conclude that a cooperative reader could indeed conclude that the installation of the BBQ inside was indeed permissible, provided, of course, that certain precautions were taken - precautions that the purchaser clearly had taken. I then examine extracts from the instruction leaflet that accompanied the BBQ and show how other observations in the leaflet can be read as supporting the original interpretation about the permissibility of inside installation.
