In both this book and his earlier The Death of Common Sense: How Law is Suffocating America (Random House 1995), Howard describes how America's freedom has been diminished by its lawsuit culture. From Amazon.com: "[Howard] tells how seesaws have started to vanish from playgrounds, how teachers are banned from touching students, and how emergency-room staff are blocked from attending to patients off hospital grounds-even if they can see them bleeding to death just 30 feet away. These aren't just speculations, a parade of hypothetical horror stories-they are actual trends and events that Howard describes and documents."