Owner of stolen car sued in hit-run death

I know of missionaries in south america that did happen to. She was driving and hit someone. She was arrested and held in jail for several weeks before being released to only house arrest. It was finally resolved, but it did not matter that the pedestrian was negligent in walking in front of her car.

That lawsuit sounds great. Let’s become MORE like a third world country.

Not that I don’t enjoy myopia as well as the next guy, but whose volitional conduct contributed more to this situation, the owner who left his car running on the street unattended, or the fellow who was run down by a car thief?

Until someone devises an effective way to either eliminate all potential for crime, or make certain that all car thieves maintain adequate insurance coverage, this strikes me a particularly appropriate division of liability. That plus only a moron leaves a car running unattended, ripe for being stolen and causing harm. Given the simple solution of turning off the car and removing the keys, I am unpersuaded that the owner is being unfairly sued.

PhilG, you’ll be happy to know that Congress passed a law in 2005 that preempts such laws that are on the books in New York, DC, Florida and maybe a few more. Basically, it exempts rental car companies from liability for the torts of their renters. It’s commonly called the “Graves Amendment.”

There have been a couple of attempts to get it held as unconstitutional, but last I heard, the 11th Circuit affirmed that it is constitutional.

So E-Bell, since you have told us that the “Graves Amendment” protects car rental companies from being held responsible for the torts of their renters, would it also protect the owner of the car in this case from being held responsible for the tort of the car thief? Or is this different?

John’s Comment: “Your parked car gets hit? You have some fault for having parked just when and where you did.”

I think you would find that 99.999% of the people disagree with this. Believe me, I appreciate the effort to see gray. But every now and again, a cigar is just a cigar.

Ron, John was talking about other countries to make the point “it could be worse.” And that is true. our legal system is not the worst, but we could do alot better.

Cynical viewpoint, leaving aside New York’s PIP/no-fault rules: The owner of the car was sued solely because he has auto liability insurance. The thief has none.

Of course someone can come in to discuss the negligence (it does seem stupid) of leaving one’s car running while doing a quick errand, but if the thief was rich, the owner wouldn’t have been sued.

gitar

> The owner of the car didn’t give the thief his car.

He all but did. He made it so easy its ridiculous.

i wouldn’t just leave an unlocked, loaded gun in the middle of a sidewalk unattended and i wouldn’t leave my car with key in the ingition and running. wouldn’t do it ever and never have. I’m a big pro-gun kind of guy, and i believe in a pretty unfettered right to drive, but with that right comes responsibility and respect for the fact that both are capable of seriously maiming or killing someone. that is why a wise gun owner knows that you always asume a gun is loaded however certain you are that it is not, and why you never point a gun at anything you don’t intend to shoot; and likewise, you never leave your car when its running. Those people who do are thoughtless fools who think that the tiny degree of convenience they gain (and the mythical value of “warming the car up”) outweighs the risk that someone will take that deadly weapon from you and harm someone else with it. Literally anyone could have taken that car, and in that case, the worst possible person did.

And to say to a person in a hospital bed because of that car owner’s stupidity “gee, tough break. i guess you gotta pay the bills yourself” is wrong; and since most theives are judgement proof, if you say only the theif is liable, that is what you are saying. I am not big on expansive liability. i am corporate counsel for a health care company so i am usually on the defending side of personal injury suits. but right is right and if you are that stupid, and someone gets hurt because you are that stupid, then you should pay. and then maybe that will serve as a warning to the rest of the people not to be so damned irresponsible.

Don’t give a monkey a gun, or leave it where the monkey can get it. and if you do, and someone gets hurt, you should have to pay for it. Its a no brainer to me.

We should have some expectations of being able to live a reasonable and normal life too without the need to constantly look behind our back and/or lock everything up. I agree, the car owner wasn’t real smart, but you do get tired of loss of freedom and the inconvenience from always being on guard to protect yourself, your family, and your property. Just because something’s sitting there, doesn’t mean you can take it.

Yeah, we’ve had our car robbed, a house robbery, etc., etc. Locks don’t stop people. We’ve had two minor house fires and I refuse to be trapped inside and not be able to get out. By the way, the burglars they did catch didn’t need, sell, or even use the items they took. They just wanted them.

Poser

Well, i have lived as far north as connecticut and not had that problem but then… connecticut is not alaska. i guess if you are ever in a situation where it is so cold that a well-maintained car would have trouble restarting, i would give you a pass.

I honestly can’t say because i don’t live up there, but i will readily admit i didn’t think of alaska.

But in the lower 48? i don’t see any possibility of an excuse for it.

A.W. said:

I mean if you give a monkey a gun and he shoots someone, well whose fault is that?

There is another part of your analogy that is flawed. A monkey doesn’t know what he is doing. A human being does. Even if the guy “gave” his car to the thief (which he didn’t), the thief still knew that he could kill someone by hitting him with the car, and that killing is wrong.

I see a new industry for thieves (eliminating the need to steal the old-fashioned way): Breaking into the houses of people who look well-insured, slipping on the floor, lying there until the ambulance comes and suing for millions.

This is actually a standard fact pattern in 1L torts classes: this scenario was one of the first where courts, decades ago, began to ignore the concepts of intervening causation and proximate cause and to instead treat deep pockets as insurers for society at large.

I am amused by the similar anecdote on this PI firm’s page: Our attorneys recently had a similar type of auto accident with State Farm. A group of friends were leaving a meeting and one gentleman got his car, drove in front of the building were the meeting occurred, and ran in the building to get a soft drink. His friend, playing a practical joke, jumped into the car to hide it from his friend so that he would think it was stolen. Of course, he did it quickly and ran over our client who suffered a herniated disc in her neck. Like the personal injury lawyer in that case, we brought a claim against both the driver and the man who left his keys in the car. Although foreseeability was arguable, after we filed suit, State Farm settled the case anyway for the policy limits.

PhilG: Sorry to take so long to get back to you, but the Graves Amendment would NOT protect the defendant in this suit. It’s specific to car rental companies. You can find the law at 49 USC s. 30106

Basically, several states have laws that make the owner of a vehicle vicariously liable for the torts of anyone who drives it. There is usually a defense available if the driver did not have the owner’s permission to operate the vehicle .

It became a problem for car rental companies, because obviously a renter has the permission of the rental car company to drive the vehicle. But a car rental company has no way to control the actions of the renter, and really no way to determine if a renter is a “good driver” other than the presentation of a valid driver’s license. So why should they be held liable for the torts of someone over which they have no control?

Thus, the Graves Amendment was introduced and passed.

I say this. At what point can you be so utterly irresponsible with the security of your car that it is no different than giving it to him?

I’m sorry, but I can’t believe that you think that any object that is not secured is available to all for the taking.

The only difference between that and what happened there is that the driver, however stupidly, was surprised when someone took it—that is, he didn’t intend to entrust his car to an unqualified driver, even though he made it so easy he might as well have.

No, the difference is that the owner of the vehicle never gave the car away. He never entrusted it to anyone. He never said he anyone could borrow it.

The care was stolen.

But frankly as a rule of thumb, I don’t believe our legal system should coddle the stupid. If you are stupid and someone is harmed because you are stupid, you should get the bill.

Being “stupid” is not a crime. As a rule of thumb, I believe that the legal system should not coddle those who break the law, and then try to blame the victim of a crime.

Your thought process seems to be that a theft of item places the owner of the item in jeopardy for whatever further crimes may be commited with the stolen object.

Well, given that _but_for_the_actions_of_the_driver,_ he might not have been there in the hospital, I don’t see how you can say that.

Its very easy to say that. The guy stole a car. He was impaired when he stole the car. He drove the stolen car while impaired. He drove onto the sidewalk in a stolen car and impaired and ran over two impaired kids.

Literally if the car owner had only taken the keys, then maybe the thief wouldn’t have had the skills or sobriety to hotwire the car, and maybe no one would be hurt.

“Literally…… maybe?” That is the problem here. You keep saying “what if” and I keep saying “the guy stole the car.” There is no excuse for what the thief and killer did, yet you are trying to make excuses for him.

Its one thing to say that you don’t want to hold the car owner liable, but clearly from a moral point of view, its his fault, too.

From a moral point of view the owner of the car is even LESS cupable. The car was HIS property. It was stolen. How is that his “moral” fault? Or are you back to the position that everything that is out in the open belongs to everyone that wants it?

By the way, since the two victims were intoxicated at the time, according to your way of thinking, shouldn’t they be held accountable as well? After all, they were underaged drinkers and if they hadn’t been drinking and had their reflexes slowed, they could have jumped out of the way when the car came down the road. Right? The kids intentionally drank and helped cause this too, right? You want to hold them responsible as well?

But the fact is that the owner is not innocent.

Do you have any information that the car owner was charged with, much less convicted, of a crime?

If it turned out the thief had money then the majority of the duty to pay should come out of his hide.

Welcome to the site. It seems that you have just agreed with a major basis of this site. It isn’t about anything other than the money. The parents saw a deeper pocket and are going after the money contained within.

Nothing more. Nothing less.

A.W., if the renter was drunk when he rented the car, then you have a textbook case of negligent entrustment and the rental car company could be held liable. The Graves Amendment does not shield rental car owners whose own conduct is negligent.

John (#33) I agree with you until you get silly after “not be a nickel of damages.”

My bad, i said that last one poorly. the question should be:

” Forget liability, just from a moral point of view, do you recognize any moral guilt in the CAR OWNER?”

Sorry.

Yes, A.W., the car owner is guilty because he owns property. As I pointed out above, it is clear that property is the sourc of all evil. Remove all property from individuals, lest they fail in their duty to give it all to lawyers.

Bob

A.W., I sure hope you are being somewhat sarcastic. But on the assumption that you are not . . .

That sounds like another version of a deep-pockets case; here, instead of suing the person who STOLE THE CAR(!)–and likely has not much $$$–sue the owner of the STOLEN car–who likely has a lot more money or insurance. Why not sue the police/sherriff’s department for failing in their duty to prevent this in the first place; there are the deeper pockets (taxpayers!), or the car maker for not having a device installed that senses when a person isn’t sitting in the driver’s seat and turns off the car . . . the deepest pockets???

That’s right, A.W. The car owner did not turn off the car. And he did not lock it up in a garage which he then had set in concrete and then had sunk to the bottom of the ocean. Because unless you do that, how can you be sure that the car won’t be stolen?

Now, I anticipate you will say that this is not ‘reasonable’ action. But given that a car might be broken into, hot-wired and used to kill innocent drunks staggering down the middle of the highway, should not any reasonable person anticipate that situation and have the car destroyed every time he gets out? Or even before. Some people have guns and may shoot me, steal the car and leave my heirs to pay the bill.

Every law and court decision in which the word ‘reasonable’ is used is ubject to endless interpretation. Once you have the attractive nuisance’ doctrine in place, then the mere existence of a car is an attraction to drunken thieves. Your only safety is to put it at the bottom of the ocean.

Bob

A.W.

Forget liability, just from a moral point of view, do you recognize any moral guilt in the driver?

For the 400th time, no.

I suppose that you think that a woman who dresses a certain way “deserves it” if she is raped. It is the same reasoning that you are trying to put forth here. You are holdiing the victim accountable for the actions of a criminal.

And stop pretending I am talking about just any object. A car is like a gun.

A car is no more a unique object than any other object. You can kill with a hammer stolen from Lowes. Are you willing to say that Lowes is “morally accountable” when a stolen hammer is used to harm someone? You can kill or injure with a baseball bat, a knife, a saw, a ring, a brick, a piece of wood, a screwdriver, a needle and a million other things.

Sorry, but to let the owner off the hook is to coddle the stupid and irresponsible, and to insulate them from the consequences of their own stupidity and irresponsibility.

The responsibility lies soley with the thief. Basically you are trying to sell the notion that the owner of the car is responsible for the theft of the car. He isn’t. The only person responsible for the theft of the car is the guy who stole the car.

i won’t debate it anymore because apparently you guys have no sense of personal responsibility.

We do have a sense of personal responsibility. We just know that the thief had a personnal responsibility not to steal the car.

The fact that you pretend i am saying something i am not only demonstrates how weak your arguments.

Sory,AW, but what you have experienced is a total dismantling of any and all arguments you have put forth here. People have addressed the issues you raised and you have either not addressed them or say that you never said what was being argued.

I have never said the theif shouldn’t be held liable too.

The issue is that you say that the car owner should be held liable for the illegal actions of the thief. That is something that you have continually failed to address. Your basic premise is that the the owner of the car “allowed” the car to be stolen. Taken to its logical conclusion, your point has to be that the “allowing” started when the car was purchased.

i have never said that you had to lock up your car like gold at Ft. Knox.

Yet that is the logical conclusion of your arguments. At what level has the owner of the car secured the car to where it cannot be stolen? Should the car just be locked? You do realize that locked cars are broken into and stolen every day don’t you? Should the car be equiped with an alarm system even though cars with alarms are stolen every day?

i have never said that you have this duty with every object you might posses, just guns and cars. they are both uniquely dangerous in their own respects.

Yet as it has been shown, guns and cars are not unique in their ability to cause harm – great harm or death – to others.

I refuse to accept that idea that the law should coddle the stupid and irresponsible, when their stupid irresponsibility leads to the pain, suffering and even death of others.

The only irresponsibility here was the thief. He illegally stole something that was not his simply because his moral compass was pointed south instead of north.

All the jerk had to do was take the keys out of his car, and maybe the Ogles wouldn’t have had to bury their own son.

There ya go. “Maybe.” You don’t know what would have happened had the car been locked or whatever. The thief has a history of car thefts, so you don’t know if he would have stolen the car or not. Basically you want to hold the car owner accountable for a “what if.”

is that so much to ask?

And if the thief had not broken the law, they would not have had to bury their son. If the son wasn’t intoxicated, they may not have to bury him either. Yet I don’t see you blaming him for his reckless and illegal activities. The guy you want to add to this mess and say is culpable is the owner of the car.

The ironic thing about that is that the owner of the car is the only person in this tragedy that wasn’t doing anything illegal.

A.W.

There are numerous vehicles curerently on the road that start via push button or the like, some which do not require electronic transponders to act as “keys”. Many, while perhaps not capable of travel at 100 mph (surely an unnecessary embelishment) are considerably more massive – including numerous peices of construction equipment, some buses (think school buses) and other products developed on similar chassis. Surely you do not intend to suggest that the manufacturer is liable in negligence for making a product which might be stolen and misused? That seems suspiciously similar to blaming a homeowner for burglary losses whose open windows are protected only by screens. It also sounds similar, to me at least, to attempts to blame firearms manufacturers for misuse of their otherwise legal products…

In this case, the car owner was also harmed by the theft – albeit to lesser degree than those who lost life or limb. The theif is responsible for both their losses. If they are concerned by his ability to pay their damages, I suggest that such is the purpose of insurance – a concept as old as the Code of Hammurabi.

Methinks, A.W. (”Awfully Wrong”?), using what you pass for “logic”, that you would say you’d pay up if:
>> You leave your credit card or checkbook behind at a business;
>> Someone else then takes that card or checkboook;
>> Cleans out your checking account–or runs the card to its limit–and that someone is then arrested for theft; and
>> You don’t realize that you left the card or checkbook until the next day.
Why? Because, according to Awfully Wrong, you–the card owner or account owner–were “negligent” by leaving the checkbook or card behind and not realizing it until later. So, as the owner of the account or card, YOU are the one charged with theft.
Man alive, the credit card companies would make a fortune off of you.

Gitar,

> Your contention is that the owner of the car “allowed” the car to be stolen. The only way to prevent a car from being stolen is to lock it up like Fort Knox.

I’ve already said it. You can draw lines. You can say you can’t make it easy for them, without saying you have to lock it up like ft. knox. There is a rational difference between the two and the law draws that kind of line all the time. So I consider your point already addressed.

> then someone else who wants to go after the deep pockets will claim that it is reckless and stupid to turn off the engine, take the keys but not lock the car

Yes, anyone can argue whatever they want. But they won’t win. The judge would literally dismiss it himself, if my approach is followed.

> Furthermore, if the state would have wanted to carve out a limited liability statute, they would have.

I honestly don’t know if they have. I am not pretending to know NY State law. I am saying from a policy perspective, this is a good idea. I am saying that regardless of what the law is, this is what the law should be.

> I ask again…… in this case where 3 of the four people were breaking the law are you wanting to hold the only legally innocent guy liable for what happened?

So now you are blaming the victim of the car accident. You know for drinking as a teenager. I am sure you never did that, right?

Like as if the fact he wasn’t of legal age to drink has anything to do with it. I mean even if somehow he drunkenly contributed to the accident (and we don’t know one way or the other on that point), the fact he was a teenager has nothing to do with that fact; it was merely the fact he was drunk.

And notice you use the word “legally” before the word innocent. Why? Because even you can’t defend this idiot car owner from moral culpability.

> Your point seemed to be that the car and gun were unique in that they were able to injure someone.

No, that is not what I said. And it is so clearly not what I said that I question whether you even read everything I wrote. So I will consider this asked and answered.

> Just as using a DVD player as a weapon is not it’s intended, legal use,

Um, its not illegal per se to use a DVD player as a weapon… Like if a guy is coming at you with a knife and you happen to be holding a DVD player and whack the guy in the head, that’s self-defense and legal. I’m not saying that is easy, or that a DVD player is a good choice of weapon, but it isn’t illegal.

> The person who was using the car in the legal manner is the guy who you want to add blame upon.

Well, what you really mean there is that he is not violating the criminal code. But whether it is legal or not is currently being decided. You can be sued for doing many things that are not criminal. For instance, if a man drops a hammer off of a high-rise accidentally and it harmed someone, unless he was being grossly negligent, in most jurisdictions that is not a crime. But it would almost certainly be considered negligent and he could be liable for the damages.

Here’s the big picture. The law of torts, which is what we are talking about here, is about figuring out who should foot the bill. One of the most elementary ideas in the law is that those who could avoid the costs should pay the costs and we increase the likelihood of suit the less we like the behavior. So take my break down of what the law says on animals last time. We like dogs, we think they give people a positive benefit. So in most jurisdictions if a dog not known to bite, the owner is not liable the first time someone gets bit. By comparison, we think it is indulgent and fairly dangerous to keep a tiger. So many jurisdictions say, “okay, you can keep it, but if he gets out and hurts anyone you pay.” That way when a person decides whether or not to buy a tiger, that person has to rationally weigh the cost of keeping the tiger caged v. the cost of the lawsuit if the tiger hurts someone. Imagine if we had a different rule? Imagine if we said, you can keep the tiger and if it gets out and hurts someone, you can’t be sued? Then a person would have no financial motive to control the tiger at all. They could literally let it run around the neighborhood off-leash, inflicting damage on everyone else without consequence.

When you decide whether to leave your car running or not, I want you to ask yourself “is my convenience worth the risk of theft and even a lawsuit if the thief hurts anyone else with it?” Why? Because I don’t want people to leave their car running (at least outside of Alaska), and one of the reasons why is that when the car is stolen there is a good chance an innocent can get hurt. Why make it easy for the thieves? Especially because not every person has the skill to hot wire a car, and if you are just going in and out of a store (as the defendant allegedly was, here), the thief might not have had enough time to pull it off. The behavior is indefensible. It is morally wrong to leave your keys in the car as it runs, and one of the reasons why it is wrong is because you dramatically increase the chances of it being stolen, and if stolen, you have no idea what that thief is going to do with your car.

And then there is the issue of the police having to take up their resources to capture your car, when they could be doing more important things, or if they have nothing more important to do, they could appropriately reduce the police force. That’s a cost all of us bear when a person chooses to leave their car running, too. I am remind of the John Stossel piece recently that argued that if you keep doing dangerous things in our national parks, requiring you to be rescued by the park rangers, you should have to pay for that. You want these reckless car owners to make it so easy to steal their car, any idiot could do it (even our current vice president), and then when the police have to take time to track it down, I the taxpayer has to pay, and if the thief runs down an innocent person, that innocent person has to pay (unless the thief is rich), too, oh and might be disabled for life to boot. Or dead. And if that innocent person is disabled for life, and goes on social security disability, then I have to pay for that too; and even if not, we lose some of that person’s productivity. Now I am myself disabled so I know its not the end of the world, but there is no question that there is a loss when a person becomes disabled. All that paying, when we know for a fact that a car is much more likely to be stolen if you leave the keys in them. It is such a simple thing to take your keys with you, and it avoids a ton of costs and misery in our society. Why exactly should we let these idiots off the hook for all the misery they could have prevented by doing such a simple thing?

Melvin

I never said the car owner should be tried with theft. I suggest you actually read what I say instead of constructing a straw man, or else I am afraid your analysis will be Always Wrong.

Bob

If your problem is vague laws, you have a lot more laws than this one to worry about. Which actually is a genuine concern, by the way.

And of course you can write the law specifically. If you find a law saying that if you are reckless in regard to your car’s security as too vague how is this:

> If an automobile is taken by a thief, where that that taking is aided to any degree by the fact that a person recklessly failed secure said automobile, and the thief then negligently, recklessly or intentionally harms a third party by striking that person with that vehicle; then the person who recklessly failed to secure said automobile shall be liable to that third party shall be liable for any and all damages owed by the thief to third parties related to such negligent operation of the vehicle (as determined in a court of law) that the thief fails to pay and the person who recklessly failed to secure said automobile shall have the right to recover all amounts paid under this statute from said thief. For purposes of this statute, a “third party” is a person who is not inside the vehicle, and is not the person who recklessly failed to secure the automobile; a “thief” is a person who doesn’t have the permission of the owner of an automobile to operate it and is not granted the legal right to operate such vehicle; a person has only recklessly failed to secure the vehicle if that person either 1) leaves the ignition in an unlocked state whether by leaving the key in the lock or by allowing the automobile’s ignition to lack a locking mechanism, or 2) by locking the ignition but leaving the keys to that lock inside the vehicle; and the singular shall include the plural and the plural shall include the singular.

It’s a mouthful, I will grant you, but what it means is that you are only liable if the following happens:

The car is taken by a thief (basically anyone who doesn’t have a permission or otherwise the legal right to take the car)
And the keys were in the car (or there isn’t even an ignition lock)
And the fact the keys were in the car aided in the theft (so if you left the keys under the seat, but the thief didn’t realize and hotwired your car, you are off the hook)
And the thief negligently, recklessly or intentionally harmed someone else using the car (so the thief has to harm a person with the car and has to harm someone who didn’t voluntarily get in the car with the thief)
And that person who was hurt sues the thief and gets an award of money
And the thief doesn’t pay all of it (and usually they won’t pay any of it)
Then the person who was hurt can sue the person who left the keys in the car for all amounts unpaid, and
The person who left the keys in the car can go and get that money back from the thief if it is possible (and as a practical matter, it usually won’t be)

I prefer a much simpler statement that you have a duty to secure your car and you recklessly fail to do so you are liable. Most juries will understand exactly what that means—things like leaving your keys in it, having your ignition completely unlocked, etc. but if you don’t want any uncertainty, I wouldn’t say my proposed statute is perfect but it is a pretty good stab at it, and with a few tweeks it would focus on this exact problem pretty much like a laser beam.

And i will add the limitation i admitted a long time ago. This law shouldn’t be passed in Alaska, because it sounds like there is an actual need sometimes to leave a car running due to the extreme cold. But in the lower 48 and hawaii? i think its fine.

Gitar

> Yet as has been shown, the lines can and do shift.

Well, by that logic, you can’t pass any law. If you are pro-choice, then you can’t even support a law against murder because it might slide down the slippery slope until abortion is illegal. But the pro-life side can argue that a law allowing for abortion might lead to the legalization of murder. Both positions, however, are silly.

> They shouldn’t win suing the car owner either if common sense is applied.

If common sense was applied, the car owner wouldn’t have left his car running in the first place. And common sense says that when a person has no common sense, and his stupidity causes another person pain or death, that paying for it is the least he should do.

> And as you can see, the majority of people here disagree with you.

And?

> I was never intoxicated under the legal drinking age.

Riiiiight.

> I am not blaming the kids for being drunk. Yet it is unfathomable how you are blaming the other victim in this crime. You dismiss his being a victim.

With what exact words did I say he wasn’t a victim? By all means, he has a cause of action for recovery of any cost or damage to his car, from the thief. Of course under your regime, his debt would be on equal footing with the person run over, so he would have an equal right to the money as a person who is in the hospital or dead. Doesn’t seem very fair, does it?

> If the car kids were doing something that is illegal, then certainly their culpability is greater than the legal actions of the car owner.

That’s not what the law says, and I agree with it. The illegality has to be related to why he got hurt in order to justify the damages. In this case, at most the drunkenness contributed but the fact he was underage? What on earth does it have to do with the case?

And, by the way, the fact he was drunk, even if he was of age, could be found to contribute to the negligence here. In some states that would eliminate his right to sue entirely; in most states, however, it just means he shares in part of the fault.

And that is not moral relativism. Of course they shouldn’t be drinking at that age. But just doing something wrong generally is not legally relevant; your illegal behavior has to be a contributing factor. That is black letter law.

And lets take the next two points out of order…

> The problem is that if you say that a car and a gun are unique in their ability to harm someone, that has been shown to be false.

Again, that is not what I said. Reread what I said until you get it. You have the right quote, but don’t comprehend my words.

> He is not morally or legally culpable for anything that happened.

So in your mind the car owner did nothing wrong?

Would you do what he did?

Gitar

> No, by that logic you shouldn’t hold people accountable for their legal actions when someone else does something illegal.

No, you are claiming that every time there is a slippery slope that we can’t pass any law in that area. So I guess we can’t make anything illegal, can never hold anyone responsible for their stupidity, because then we might go too far.

The fact is we avoid slipping down the slope all the time.

> Where we disagree is whether the car owner used common sense or not.

You think he was SMART to leave his car running?

> The law says that he did [exercise common sense].

The law is not purporting to say anything about common sense. And, if you take whether it is illegal or not to be a substitute for common sense, then many states do explicitly say it is illegal to do this. So its only stupid in certain states? And I don’t pretend to know what NY law says on the subject, but you have yet to show it doesn’t outlaw leaving your car running.

> “common sense” says that teens shouldn’t drink.

And when exactly did I say that teens should?

> If the kids weren’t drunk, they would not have been walking to their destination on foot as they had driven to the party.

Thus you miss my point entirely. First, you are now going to the Islamic courts view of things (if we can trust what another commenter said about that subject), that if you are hit, you are responsible because you happened to be where you were at that moment. But that is not how our courts have approached it. For instance, in one case a man was driving, over the speed limit, when a tree branch fell and struck the roof of his car. He sued the owner of the tree for negligence and the owner said he was contributorily negligent because he was speeding. The court ruled against the tree owner, saying that since the tree fell on top of the car (as opposed to in front of it), the speed of the car had nothing to do with the accident. In doing so, the court rejected the notion that the fact if he had been driving slower he wouldn’t have been in that place at that time makes him contributorily negligent.

And further, that only explains why being drunk makes them more likely to get hit, not why being a teenager who is drunk did so. Which is where you really miss the pont.

The question in causation, which is what we are talking about, is whether the negligent conduct is considered negligent because it will lead to those consequences. Speeding is dangerous because it gives you less time to avoid accidents, not because it causes things to fall out of the sky on top of your car. Likewise, drinking underage is bad because their brains are not fully developed, and this will warp that development. And leaving your car running is dangerous because any idiot can steal your car and run down someone.

> Sorry, but your words and point at this point in time are incomprehensible.

Yes, the term “uniquely dangerous” is so hard to read so that they cannot help but be understood as “unique because they are dangerous.” Seriously if you can’t understand the difference between the two, then I would have to ask if English is your first language.

> He is not morally or legally culpable for anything that happened.

That’s not what I asked. So I will repeat my question: “So in your mind the car owner did nothing wrong? Would you do what he did?”

If you punt on that question twice, we will all know what the answer is.

Gitarcarver the problem is that the car owner is legally responsible..

Bob