Tomorrow’s headlines today on Overlawyered: scarcely had Ted speculated in this space (Jan. 12) about the possibility of warning on water bottles that excessive drinking of water can be fatal, than a sensational news story comes down the wires that a California radio station, apparently ignorant or heedless of the very real risks involved, staged a water-drinking contest which proceeded to kill one of its participants (“Woman drinks so much water she dies”, AP/CNN, Jan. 13; Respectful Insolence, Jan. 14). Profs. Childs and Berman discuss the legal implications. More: In an update, Respectful Insolence provides further evidence of the recklessness of radio station personnel; the station’s ownership has fired ten of them.
Fatal draught of water
Tomorrow’s headlines today on Overlawyered: scarcely had Ted speculated in this space (Jan. 12) about the possibility of warning on water bottles that excessive drinking of water can be fatal, than a sensational news story comes down the wires that a California radio station, apparently ignorant or heedless of the very real risks involved, staged […]
21 Comments
This lady appears to have died of dilutional hyponatremia, where the excess water dilutes the bodies sodium concentration.This is a dumb stunt and if the radio station had questioned any physician beforehand, I’m sure they would have been advised not to proceed.This incident borders on criminal, not just civil, negligence.
File it under stupid human tricks.
Like armed robery, sometimes you might get shot!
Blame can only belong to EVERYBODY, that might be human, she ever encountered during her rather shortened life.
She will make an excellent addition to the Darwin awards for 2007!
GET this item,,,,, it is not new, “ALL things in excess are not good”!
Might even sound biblical, whod uv thunk it.
Though it is indeed sad, she is dead due to her own actions, SHE is the one that should have determined if she was up to the task.
I just hope that she did not have children.
Doc: Before leaping to conclusions, how would you like to have some facts? If you read the autopsy report, please, share it with us, in plain language.
Did this woman have a pre-existing condition?
If I offered a Playstation to a tort prof if he jumped from the 50th floor window, should I be sued if he does?
Warning. No one has ever survived such a leap. Before death, fear and intense pain are likely.
If he does, is there something wrong with him or me? Even if a video game addict, is the offer of a game so coercive that he completely loses responsibility for his presumptive assumption of the risk? Why is a tort prof not discussing this standard defense against liability?
To the contract prof, is there remedy available under contracts?
I’m usually not on the side of potential plantiffs here, but honestly I think there might be a case here. I wouldn’t consider the dangers of excess water consumption to be common knowledge (and certainly not on par with jumping out a window).
Another death due to Dihydrogen Monoxide!
But did she win the Wii?
Supremacy Claus: Your analogy is false, this woman (along with a majority of the US population prior to this incident) was most likely unaware of the health risks involved with drinking too much water. Your tort prof would know that he is going to die or suffer serious injury from the fall.
Criminal DrTom? Please.
Stupid, yes. But isn’t that what DJs get paid for?
She was offered the chance for a toy of dubious value but one which she was willing to take unknown risks. She could have inquired further but made the poorly informed decision of her own free will to proceed.
Jesus Christ TC, you ever do something stupid. Ever miss a stop sign? Your casual dismissiveness about another human being is off-putting
Not so fast: Are you substituting in torts, a subjective standard of personal knowledge for an objective reasonable person standard? Shouldn’t you run such a revolutionary change of torts doctrine by the legislature first?
She drank about 2 gallons in a couple hours, likely exceeding her capacity to excrete water, and likely died of what Doc Tom proposed. That is about 32 glassess of water, or one every 4 minutes. Would a reasonable person have a problem with doing that?
Whether water intoxication is within the knowledge of a reasonable person, or not, what about her assumption of risk?
Here is the case of another victim who was given about 2 gallons in 2 hours.
“Forensic Sci Int. 1995 Nov 30;76(1):27-34.
Autopsy case report of a rare acute iatrogenic water intoxication with a review of the literature. Chen X, Huang G.
This paper reports a rare autopsy case, a 21-years old healthy female worker, who died of acute iatrogenic water intoxication after she had swallowed powder scraped off 17 matches in an apparent suicide attempt. Gastric lavage was performed as she was wrongly considered to have taken poison containing phosphorus. She was given 7.8 1 water within 2 h. The pathological findings and 16 cases from the literature between 1978-1994 are reviewed.”
spo,
“”ALL things in excess are not good”!”
I cried a full bucket for her passing tonight, doubled it after reading your post, I’m so despondent over it I may go drink a couple gallons of water.
NOT!
Some good “real” information appeared in this thread and basically it pointed directly to what I mentioned within my post and included in this response.
If common sense were for lack of a better word, more common, we would not read crap like this!
Oh BTW 12 people were also fired for putting it on as well. Probably deserving for such, it was a rather stupid idea from the outset. But nevertheless it happened, not one thing I say or do can reverse it. In the end, those 12 people will learn a valuable lesson and I’d bet insure in the future they engage their own brains before coming up with such an idea.
I’m sure that we will all hear much more about the Dihydrogen Monoxide dead girl desiring a new $200 game console in the future.
I’m almost as sure that if able I’ll respond in kind then as well.
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Curious, no she did not win, came in second place. Double sadness aint it?
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I will but mention it one more time, “All things in moderation”. Gee I’d bet that applies to blog cruising as well!
Supremacy Claus: You’re excluding the environment from your argument when you ask if a reasonable person would take issue with drinking 32 glasses of water, each four minutes apart.
It’s easy to make a very strong argument that her assumption of risk did not include death. A reasonable person would not knowingly risk death (and abandoning three children and a husband) for a $250 gaming console. So take your “subjective standard of personal knowledge” somewhere else, it won’t fly in this case.
Was she reasonable when she did not consider whether the activity of drinking large amounts of water posed a risk to life? If so, then why would it not be reasonable for persons in the learned profession of Disk Jockey to also not inquire about the safety of the endeavor?
The most common last words of a redneck: “Watch this…”
Who carries the burden to research possible risk; The station’s employees sanctioning the event or the participants? I have to admit my perception of this case is tainted by the additional details released this morning, including the recording of the DJ’s during the stunt. After reading these details it’s hard to ignore their (criminal?) negligence.
http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/109112.html
Well crap, just when I thought I might be comfortable with civil liability in this case, they are looking at bringing criminal charges in this case. Personally I think the standard that would be used to find civil liability (a reasonable person wouldn’t expect drinking water could kill them) could also shield the defendants.
“Personally I think the standard that would be used to find civil liability (a reasonable person wouldn’t expect drinking water could kill them) could also shield the defendants.”
Quoted for truth. Any reason the woman wouldn’t be responsible for this would also make th DJs and radio station not responsible as well.
Ryan, did you bother to listen to the recording? The radio station employees had clearly been warned of the risks. They joked about the possibility that somebody would die. They discussed hazing incident in which a young man died. Even though they had a release form, they failed to adequately inform the participants.
There was also a call from a woman who warned them about the dangers. The DJs reply was that there is a release form.
They joked when the lady who died complained of feeling bad and having a headache.
Kitty – Loathe as I am to defend these morons, I would see a defense strategy of something like this:
The joke of the possiblity of death was just that, a joke, they didn’t seriously believe that anyone would be harmed.
As for the call from the woman about the dangers of excess water consumption, did the participants hear that warning as well? If you are going to argue that that is the basis of the defendants knowledge of the risks involved, then participants were informed at the same time.
That being said, I sure as heck wouldn’t want to try that sort of defense in front of a jury. I haven’t had a chance to listen to the recording, but if that summary is accurate I would expect a plea bargin to a lessor offense (reckless endangerment?)
As for the call from the woman about the dangers of excess water consumption, did the participants hear that warning as well?
This is something I am curious about too, but I am not that sure they did. When the call was made the participants were there at the station drinking all this water. Were the calls broadcast to everyone at the station?
I don’t know enough about radio show to know if all the participants can hear the calls.
Various reports have indicated the participants were being held in a second room, with a single DJ (that DJ could hear the conversations involving the other DJs and callers, but the participants could not) until the group was narrowed down to 2 participants, when they were all moved in to the main room.
It appears that this was the point at which the DJs as a group can be heard commenting on the decedent’s distended belly (“you look pregnant!”) but that other comments relating to the woman who was lying on the floor, teeth chattering, and generally unresponsive (your body is 98% water, you shouldn’t have any problems!) occurred while the contestants were still sequestered.
It does seem clear that no contestants heard the comments from the nurse practitioner, or were so out of it that they couldn’t manage a response — the audio is very clear, and only mocking-DJ voices and concerned-nurse voices can be heard. Responses from the decedent can, however, be heard clearly late in the broadcast.
I’ve always hated radio pranks, but they’re usually on the order of “streak through Ann Arbor wearing nothing but a Brutus Buckeye head in order to win tickets to the Big Game” and not “do something that really could kill you for a console system!” I’m really surprised that they’d be this level of dumb, which makes me sympathetic to notions of suing or possible criminal action…
On the other hand, what about that Wal-Mart that had people running for lawn chairs for Wii systems last year? How exactly is this different? The biggest change is that the Wal-Mart scenario wasn’t dependent on them running into the pole (only one man did and it was clearly accidental; the others were at a lower risk, of perhaps tripping or just being trampled) while the radio station had more than a dozen people all take on the same risk (which research would easily show was dangerous, and everyone knows is strange behavior: a “midnight dash” is relatively commonplace behavior.) Does that mean they’re more liable? Do the idiotic comments (if they die, it’s no big deal, because they signed waivers) have any legal weight, or is it just a “when this gets to a jury, they’ll tack on an extra $2 million because they see the defendants as scum” kind of thing?