Swiss miss

This could have ended badly.

An 85-year-old woman was found in the vault of a Swiss bank when she set off motion detectors hours after the bank was already closed, according to a statement released Wednesday.

Employees at the Zuercher Kantonalbank apparently forgot about the woman.

The director of the bank's safe allowed the woman into the vault on Monday before closing it punctually at 4:30 p.m. local time -- with the woman still deep in study of her documents, ZKB said.

She triggered some motion detectors after a while, and was let out four hours after being locked in.

But the end of the article is what's interesting to me, because it seems to indicate a big difference between Swiss and American society. Aside from the neutrality and cuckoo clocks, I mean.

The bank gave the woman a bouquet of flowers for suffering from the ordeal and said it would decide on further nonfinancial compensation.

Flowers and "nonfinancial compensation"? Hell, this woman would have lawyers beating down her door, trying to get her to sue the bank if this had happened here.