Word of the Month for May 2019: Exacerbate

The other day, my car started developing hiccups such that the engine chugged up little hills like a lifetime smoker.  A mechanic friend of mine listened to the engine and determined that it was due to defective ignition coils.  

Turned out, my vehicle had 6 of them and while Youtube made it look like an easy fix, easy fix it was not.  See, anytime anything electrical is involved, I get skittish (having had a third degree burn from an electrical arc).  

Anyway, with the help of my father-in-law, we were able to manage a repair in little under three hours.  Record time for a couple of amateurs.

Have you ever had to do any repairs around the house.  Maybe you're a budding Do-It-Yourselfer (DIY)?  I ask this only because of the middle-aged lady who came into my library a while back.  Seems the pipes in her house had rusted somewhat and started leaking.  Her neighbor (a budding DIY-er) offered to take a look.

With pipe wrenches in hand, neighbor began poking around and removing things.  Hours later with pipes and water and sewage all over lady's home, neighbor declared that he didn't know what he was doing and got up and left.

This brings us to our word of the month: EXACERBATE.  According to Black's Law Dictionary (10th Ed.), EXACERBATE means:

To make worse; specif., to render more violent, severe, or seriously upsetting.

After neighbor had left, lady called a plumber who declared that not only had neighbor made the situation worse, had lady called the plumber first, the repair might have cost a few hundred dollars.  With the water and sewage and miscellaneous pipes laying around, the cost quickly jumped to thousands of dollars.

Lady approached neighbor with the bill and suggested that he should help cover the final bill (of $9,524.53).  Neighbor said that since she had willingly allowed him to experiment on her pipes, that he had neither a moral or legal obligation to pay a dime.

OOOH, probably not the best thing to say as lady apparently flipped out, had to post bail, and, shortly thereafter, eventually made a beeline to my law library.  Red-faced, lady relates the above story and pleads with me to help her build a case against neighbor.  

The (or a) problem is that lady is wanting me to act as her attorney.  Omnipotent Librarian that I am, I am precluded by law to practice law.  Of course, lady doesn't want to hear any of that so what I did do is suggest lady look at:

• Words and Phrases (Thomson Reuters; Vol. 8B: Consent)
• Restatement (Second) Torts § 892 (Torts 2d §§ 708 to End)

land off lady went to build her case against her new enemy.

That's how things run.  One day you're best buddies, next day your at each other's throats.  Good thing there are law libraries around to help people find common ground (or develop a killing field, as the case may be).  

Either way, I'm sure glad she's not after me.