KEBABBLE Waiter, there's a fly in my raki! By Fazile Zahir
FETHIYE, Turkey - Compensation culture is commonly regarded as one of the banes
of modern society, a sign of a get-rich-quick mindset in which every misfortune
is someone else's fault and also an opportunity to make a fortune. Yet in a
developing country like Turkey, the development of a compensation culture is a
critical indicator of an increase in concern for public health and safety and
the protection of consumer rights.
The front page of one of the broadsheet newspapers carried the story this week
of Muammer Devecioglu who was awarded 7,700 Turkish lira (US$6,500) plus
interest for drinking raki from a bottle that he belatedly realized had a fly
in it. The presiding judge said,
"As the bottle had a special ball-bearing pouring mechanism there was no chance
that the fly had entered the bottle after it was opened."
Devecioglu was awarded the compensation because the ingestion of the
contaminated raki had "taken away the enjoyment he had previously found in
drinking raki and made him feel disgusted when he thought about it". His
lawyers claim that his health had been threatened and the judge made the award
after concluding that the experience had caused Devecioglu to become depressed.
Many Turks reading this piece will have expressed disbelief at the award for a
number of reasons. There are those like Alaattin Candan who lost his daughter
in a train accident that killed 40 people in 2004. He has waited years for the
courts to decide who was responsible for the accident so that he could start a
compensation case against the state railway organization TCDD. The court
finally ruled this month that TCDD are half responsible and that 50% of the
responsibility lay with two mechanics. Candan's lawyers are appealing the
decision and the length of time taken for the ruling (four years) now means
that the time limit for compensation claims has expired.
In 1995 Sengul and Huseyin Basaran took their three-year-old daughter to a
public hospital suffering from a heavy cold. The nurse on duty, Pakize Ozkan,
administered an injection so badly that the end result was the amputation of
Pakize's arm below the elbow. It took eight years and 79 court hearings for the
Basaran family to get a ruling in their favor and their daughter was awarded
119,000 lira compensation for her lifelong disability.
In 2005 student Mehmet Belin was playing football in his school playground when
the goalpost fell and struck him on the head. He lost sight in one eye and 90%
of the sight in his other eye. His case took two years to get through the court
system and he was finally awarded 270,000 lira for his injury. Both families
are likely to be disgusted that Devecioglu received a relatively large pay out
for drinking raki that a fly had swum in.
Other readers though will be surprised that Devecioglu was able to follow
through with a court case against a big company. Orhan Demir, vice president of
the Consumers' Association commented, "The public are still not comfortable
with seeking compensation and the main reasons for this are the high costs of
pursuing a case and the long time it takes."
Lawyer Gokhan Gunes of GD & Co welcomed the raki ruling saying that though
this case might seem absurd it indicated a shift in the mindset of the public.
"Although these types of cases are still uncommon they are increasing, members
of the public are increasingly more willing to sue hospitals and medical staff
for malpractice or to act against a council if the public bus they are
travelling on has an accident," said Gunes. "These are welcome changes in
Turkey's judicial life."
No win - no fee legal services have done a great deal to increase the number of
compensation suits brought in the UK and the US, but no similar system exists
in Turkey. Under Turkey's tax regulations lawyers are obliged to present an
invoice to a client as soon as they start work on their behalf. As service
providers, tax regulations stipulate that they must pay the value added tax on
this invoice as soon as it is raised, not when the client settles the bill.
If a lawyer feels that his client has a strong and reasonable case he can offer
the client the option to pay half the normal fees if he loses in exchange for
10% to 12% of the compensation awarded should the ruling be favorable. This
conservative attitude - combined with an attitude amongst judges that they
won't make anyone rich with large compensation awards - make speculative cases
thin on the ground.
According to lawyer Tugbay Oz, Turkish people are more used to sorting problems
out themselves and shy away from court cases which they regard as advertising
their problems in public. In many cases they rely on God to somehow redress the
balance. On the popular Turkish forum www.webhatti.com under the subheading
"Funny Things" (komik-seyler) one member posted the following examples
of how multi-million dollar compensation cases would be handled in Turkey:
The American woman
who successfully sued McDonalds for $2.5 million
for not writing "Hot" on their beverage containers
after scalding her hand with their
coffee. In Turkey: Someone would have applied toothpaste to the burn. If she had continued to fuss one of the waiters
would have given her a slap and shut her in the deep freezer.
The American cancer
patient who sued his doctors after he lived beyond
the life expectancy they had given him. In Turkey: After the patient had applied for compensation he would have been
whisked away and admitted to a public hospital. If he failed to die of cancer
there he would die fairly soon of some other infection picked up in his hospital
ward.
The beer-loving German who
lodged a $10,000 court case against the beer
manufacturers Anheuser-Busch because he claimed
that their advertisements indicated that the beer
would win him female admirers but he had
none. In Turkey: As soon as he started the case he would have featured predominantly on the news and become a minor celebrity
being interviewed on daytime TV magazine programs. His new fame would get him a
girlfriend and Anheuser-Busch would be off the hook.
One man who is no stranger to the
courts is Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan who
has lodged a record number of compensation cases.
He specifically targets journalists who write
about him negatively, but also the media in
general, and opposition party CHP (members of
Parliament) in particular.
Between March
2003, when he came to power, and March 2006, he
lodged 71 defamation cases. He won 46 of them and
has been awarded 254,000 lira. He has sued Star
newspaper the most (16 times), then Yeni Cag and
Aydinlik magazine but also made time to drag the
Sabah, Aksam, Millyet, Vatan, Radikal, Evrensel,
Ortadogu and Gunes newspapers into court as well.
Only last week, an Erdogan court case
against CHP leader Deniz Baykal for "injuring his
personal status and infringing on his personal
rights", lodged for 25,000 lira, was thrown out of
court. In general, he sues for six times more than
the courts actually award. Some might call Erdogan
"touchy" and accuse him of getting rich off the
lawsuits, but his supporters would say he is
merely providing the Turkish public with lessons
in how the rights of the individual can be
protected.
Fazile Zahir is of Turkish descent, born and brought up in London. She moved to live in Turkey in 2005
and has been writing full time since then.
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