A Problem in Briefs

From The Times – Garry Slapper’s Weird Cases 6/11/09:

In Florida, Judge Patricia Kinsey ruled recently in the case of Albert Freed who sued a men’s briefs manufacturer claiming he was injured on holiday by their badly designed underwear.

In a judgement she probably did not anticipate making while at law school, Judge Kinsey was required to engage in a detailed analysis of the relationship between male anatomy and male underwear. An alleged design defect supposedly exposed Freed to beach sand that had accumulated in swimming trunks he was wearing over his briefs. Judge Kinsey doubted the contention that the briefs had opened “whereupon the edges of the opening abraded his penis like “’sandpaper belts’”.

Ouch! More intriguingly:

Why had Freed spent two weeks on holiday aggravating the problem without reporting it to his wife? He said he was so excited about this holiday to Hawaii – which he had won – that he did not want to complain about his debilitating pain until they got home. [Edit – there’s a first time for everything, I guess!! --]. Asked in cross-examination why he had not inspected the problem early to assess the possible dangers, he replied that he was a “belly man” and could not see his penis.

Wow. Still, Underwear injuries seem to be more common than you might think.

According to official data on accidents, underwear injures many Britons every year. In 2002, for example, 369 people were caused serious injury by underpants or knickers.

All of these underwear mishaps remind me of watching a spoof scene based on the old BBC show 999, in which a middle-aged chap did himself a mischief pulling on a pair of underpants. I think it essentially involved him putting his left leg into the right pant hole and, well, you’ve guessed it – disaster ensued. The Fire Brigade has quite a time cutting him out of them as I recall.  Not pretty.