1999年考研英语单词.docx

1999-1Luckily, if the doormat or stove failed to warn of coming disaster, a successful lawsuit mightcompensate you for your troubles. Or so the thinking has gone since the early 1980s, when juriesbegan holding more companies liable for their customers misfortunes.幸运的是假如门垫或炉灶上没有警示语告诉你可能发生的危害，一个成功的诉讼或许可以补偿你的损失。大约自80年代初这种想法就出现了，当时陪审团已开始认为更多的公司应对其顾客所遭受的不幸负责。Feeling threatened, companies responded by writing ever-longer warning labels, trying toanticipate every possible accident.因为感到威胁，各公司通过撰写更长的警告标识来作为对策，试图预测种种可能（发生）的事件。While warnings are often appropriate and necessary—the dangers of drug interactions, forexample—and many are required by state or federal regulations, it isnt clear that they actuallyprotect the manufacturers and sellers from liability if a customer is injured.尽管警告往往是合理的和必要的——例如，药物相互作用的危险——而且很多警告也是州或联邦法规所要求的，但是如果消费者受伤，它们（这些警示语）能否真正保护制造商和销售商使之免于责任，这还很难说。As personal injury claims continue as before, some courts are beginning to side with defendants,especially in cases where a warning label probably wouldnt have changed anything.当个人受伤索赔一如既往持续，一些法院开始站在被告的一边，尤其是在那些有警告标识也无法避免伤害的案件时。At the same time, the American Law Institute—a group of judges, lawyers, and academicswhose recommendations carry substantial weight—issued new guidelines for tort law statingthat companies need not warn customers of obvious dangers or bombard them with a lengthy listof possible ones.与此同时，美国法学会——一个由法官，律师和学者组成的团队，他们的意见极具分量——发布新的民事侵权法纲要，规定公司不需要警告顾客显而易见的危险，或者用冗长的潜在危险的清单轰击他们。Important information can get buried in a sea of trivialities, says a law professor at Cornell LawSchool who helped draft the new guidelines.康奈尔大学法学院一位参与起草纲要的法学教授说道：“重要的信息会淹没在细枝末节的汪洋大海中。”If the moderate end of the legal community has its way, the information on products mightactually be provided for the benefit of customers and not as protection against legal liability.如果法律界这一适度的目标能够实现的话，那么产品上提供的信息可能确实能保护消费者利益，而不是用来逃避法律责任。1999-2Some companies are limiting the risk by conducting online transactions only with establis