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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Posts tagged as:
personal responsibility
“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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“A judge has awarded more than $6.7 million to the family of a Northeastern University student who fell down a set of stairs at a Boston bar in 2007 and died after a night of drinking. The judge’s award comes about three months after a jury ruled the bar violated the city building code but was not liable for the 21-year-old man’s death.” [Boston Globe; Herald; MyFoxBoston]
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By reader acclaim: the family of a Pennsylvania woman who attended — but did not participate in — a New Jersey “Polar Bear Plunge” charity event has sued the event sponsors and many others. Tracy Hottenstein was last seen alive around 2:15 a.m. on the night of drinking after the festivities, and was later discovered in the bay having, per Cape May County authorities, “died accidentally from hypothermia and acute intoxication.” In addition to the event sponsors, the suit names “the owners of two bars she was at on the night she died and the couple who invited her to dinner at their home that evening. Also named is the hospital where she died and the doctor who pronounced her dead, as well as the Sea Isle City Police Department and individual officers who — the suit claims — did not allow rescue workers to perform lifesaving treatment for hypothermia after they discovered Hottenstein had no pulse.” [AP/NJ.com]
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After a pedestrian was hit by a truck and suffered a broken elbow and other injuries, he began to drink excessively and developed clinical alcoholism with serious health consequences. Doctors testified that the man’s “pain and mood” following the injury contributed to this development, in combination with genetic predisposition (both his parents were alcoholics). A judge in the province of British Columbia found that the “alcohol abuse was caused by the Accident and that such alcohol abuse was reasonably foreseeable,” so that compensation for it could be recovered as part of the lawsuit. [BC Injury Law]
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Hoping to ride for free, 16-year-old Delvonte Tisdale stowed away in the landing gear of a US Airways flight but fell to his death in the Boston area. Now his family is suing, represented by Florida attorney Christopher Chestnut, who argues that the lad “should never have successfully gained access to that airplane. Had airport security been up to par, he would be alive and well with his family today.” [Boston Globe and more via TortsProf, BoingBoing]
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He loses a suit arguing that the bar should have checked patrons for weapons. [Point of Law]
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Kevin at Lowering the Bar spots a promising new theory in a defense expert’s testimony, though it’s not clear the lawyers actually wound up making use of it. [Vail Daily, same at Denver Post]
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