Chronicling the high cost of our legal system
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Some stories just seem destined for this site, including this one about a woman whose legal complaint alleges that “her ex-husband met her after she was hired to work at McDonald’s and later pushed her into prostitution in Nevada.” [Courthouse News, NY Daily News]
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“Surveillance footage suggests that [Azcona] was heavily intoxicated, stumbling several times before he fell into a snow bank and didn’t get up.” Later a snowplow hit him. His survivors are suing the Trenton, N.J. bar that allegedly should have cut him off earlier, along with the city. [Ann Marie McDonald, New Jersey Lawsuit Reform Watch; Trenton Times]
“A New Jersey man who got so drunk playing beer pong at a Greenwich Village pub that he thought walking across a busy highway was a good idea cannot sue the bar over his injuries, a judge has ruled.” [Dareh Gregorian, NY Post]
Having decided to cut classes, a 15-year-old student at Mitchell High School in New Port Richey, Fla. was fatally struck by a car one morning last year about a mile from school grounds. “Her mother says school officials could have prevented her death — and she’s pursuing legal action with the hope of changing their supervision and tardiness policies….The notice, drafted by Mamonoff’s attorney Stacy Kemp, offered to drop the matter and settle out of court for $1 million.” [St. Petersburg Times]
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Max Kennerly thinks we should understand their point of view. Earlier here, here, etc., etc.
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“A South Carolina woman is suing the bar that served her alcohol as a minor the night she had a car accident that left her paralyzed. Chelsea Hess, 22, is also suing the South Carolina Department of Transportation, the town of Bluffton and Beaufort County for negligence for allegedly not maintaining the road shoulder she drove her car over in her accident.” [ABC via @amyalkon]
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But the estate of a Massachusetts man killed in an apparent accident when the gun went off was not allowed to sue the owner and gun manufacturer. [Volokh]
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“The president of the Florence Park District says he’s disappointed in a system that allows a man riding a motorized bicycle on a winter night on a trail that doesn’t allow motorized vehicles to receive an insurance settlement. Half of the settlement came from a Florence bar because snow was pushed onto the trail when the bar parking lot was plowed.” [AP]
“Two passengers riding in a stolen car that was involved in a wreck sue the car’s 91-year-old owner” The driver of the wreck was a man defendant George Hinnenkamp had sometimes hired to do odd jobs; the passengers claim he had extended permission for the man to take the car that night, but a district attorney who successfully prosecuted the case says that isn’t so, noting that Hinnenkamp had reported the car stolen well before the accident. [Eugene, Oregon, Register-Guard]
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“D.C. United’s Charlie Davies is suing the owners of a Washington nightclub and the drink company Red Bull for $20 million, claiming they are responsible for a fatal car crash that ended the MLS player’s hopes of joining the 2010 U.S. World Cup team. Davies, now 25, was a passenger in the car driven by a woman who has since pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and drunken driving in the 2009 one-car crash that killed a second passenger.” Perhaps his theory will be that the nightclub had an obligation to assess how drunk the woman was, but he didn’t. [AP/ESPN]
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The teenage girl’s family has now sued the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Commission, the event company Insomniac, a former events manager, and other parties alleging negligent staffing and supervision, inadequate security, slow emergency response and other deficiencies [L.A. Times]
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“Daniel Schuler, whose wife, Diane Schuler, killed herself and seven others in a wrong-way crash on the Taconic State Parkway is suing the state and his brother-in-law, whose three daughters were victims. Daniel Schuler filed a lawsuit Monday against the state in the New York Court of Claims, arguing that the highway was poorly designed and lacked proper signs.” [White Plains, N.Y. Journal-News] More on the catastrophic crash, which is the subject of a new HBO documentary by Liz Garbus: Bloomberg.
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Teacher gave me booze, pills and car keys, says Dylan Ferguson, and so it’s the school district’s fault that I hurt myself [Orlando Sentinel]
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Although the New Jersey legislature enacted a law in 1997 flatly barring drunk drivers from recovering damages over their own car crashes, the state’s supreme court ruled that because the law did not explicitly override the state’s dramshop (liquor-server liability) law, it would be read as having left it intact. [NJLJ, NJLRA, more]
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“Was it a lack of common sense or utility company negligence that prompted a 16-year-old boy to climb a power pole, get shocked and fall 35 feet and into paralysis?” [St. Petersburg Times] Earlier zapped pylon-climbers here, here (also a Tampa Electric case), and here.
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Kevin at Lowering the Bar recalls an unsuccessful product liability action by a plaintiff who “managed to injure herself when attempting to activate ‘The Clapper,’ the famous as-seen-on-TV device that promised to permanently eliminate that tiresome chore of actually crossing a room and operating a light switch.”
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Reversing a state appeals court, the Louisiana Supreme Court has reinstated summary judgment in favor of a defendant manufacturer in the case of a 13-year-old injured while playing unsupervised with an oil pump, “finding that riding an oil-well pump like it was an amusement park ride was not a reasonably anticipated use of the pumping unit at the time of its manufacture in the 1950′s.” [Wajert; earlier]
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Individual liberty, free markets, and peace: the world's premier libertarian think tank. Publishes Cato at Liberty, where I blog on contemporary policy issues.
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