Trash-can variations

For years, solid-waste carts, as Solid Waste Services (or the sanitation department) likes to call them, were left with the tops flipped open as a sign that they'd been emptied. Then, for several weeks, the lids were flipped closed. Was that short-lived practice a response to the suit brought by the woman in a neighboring jurisdiction who fell headfirst into one and couldn't get out? Anyhow, the old practice seems to have returned, at least for this one week.