- Not just motorists: revenue-hungry St. Louis County municipalities mulct residents and homeowners with tickets over toys in yard, missing shingles, overgrown trees [St. Louis Post-Dispatch]
- So hard to convict: six officers from notorious Philadelphia narcotics squad acquitted in federal “dangled over balconies” case [Inquirer]
- Strictly non-business: Mayor of Campo, Colo. “asserted the ticketing …is strictly about public safety and not to generate revenue.” [KUSA, autoplays]
- Texas legislature: “Bill to limit filming of police activity is dropped” [Allison Wisk, Dallas Morning News]
- “I remember getting mocked as a nutty libertarian when arguing that primary seat belt laws would be used to profile.” [@radleybalko on CBS Miami report]
- “Breaking Down the Cost of Jaywalking: Where Does Money from a $190 Ticket Go?” [L.A., 2010, BlogDowntown via Amy Alkon discussion, earlier, Timothy Kincaid on Twitter] “A traffic fine should not devastate folks living paycheck to paycheck. [Cal.] Senate working to fix this” [Mariel Garza, L.A. Times]
- On the need for independent prosecutors in police misconduct cases [Jacob Sullum]
Posts Tagged ‘seatbelts’
December 6 roundup
- TSA: design of gun on purse is “replica gun” [Radley Balko]
- “Note: Before Attaching Ankle Monitor, Make Sure Leg Is Real” [Lowering the Bar]
- “Harm to others” rationale seems to fall by wayside as Boston bans workplace use of e-cigarettes [Jacob Sullum]
- “Should legislation protect the obese?” [NYT “Room for Debate”]
- German town drops charges against Pope Benedict XVI for failure to wear seat belt in Popemobile [WaPo, Lowering the Bar, Irish Times]
- Ninth Circuit agrees to review litigation seeking court takeover of vets’ mental care [SFChron, WSJ Law Blog, earlier]
- The shaky science of “shaken baby syndrome” [Pfaff, Prawfs, ABA Journal, earlier here, here] Jerry Brown should pardon dubiously convicted grandmother [Emily Bazelon, Slate]
Rewarding officiousness
Annals of paternalism
Most states now require seat belt use by adults riding in the back of the car [USA Today]
Update: Branham v. Ford
In May 2001, Cheryl Jane Hale was driving four children to a sleepover in her 1987 Ford Bronco. She didn’t bother to have the children wear their seat belts, so, when she took her eyes off the road to argue with the backseat passengers, and thus drove off the road and flipped the car, 12-year-old Jesse Branham was thrown from the car and suffered brain damage. A jury in Hampton County, South Carolina (the second jury to be impaneled—the first one was dismissed in a mistrial when it was discovered after two weeks of trial that five of the jurors were former clients of Branham’s lawyers) decided that this was only 45% Hale’s fault, held Ford 55% responsible, which puts Ford entirely on the hook for $31 million in damages.
On Monday, the South Carolina Supreme Court reversed because of prejudicial closing arguments that relied heavily on inadmissible evidence. More importantly for lawyers practicing in South Carolina, the Court adopted “the risk-utility test with its requirement of showing a feasible alternative design.”
How bad of a judicial hellhole is Hampton County? Though Hale was a co-defendant, she cooperated with the plaintiffs throughout the trial in their case against Ford, even sitting at the plaintiffs’ table; but because the judge classified Hale as a co-defendant, it meant that Hale got half of the peremptory challenges of the “defense.” More from Comer; no press coverage that I’ve seen yet. (cross-posted from Point of Law)
May 18 roundup
- Upside-down logic of Supreme Court’s Comstock, Graham cases: imprison youthful offenders for life only if they haven’t had protections of formal trial [Popehat, Pilon, Shapiro, Volokh, Pattis] Kennedy returns to use of international “consensus” as guide in constitutional interpretation [Shapiro, Bader]
- Connecticut AG Richard Blumenthal, noted scourge of misleading ad promotion (as in the Sony ghost blurber case), falsely claimed Vietnam service [Raymond Hernandez, NY Times] Cf. the curious “Harvard swim captain” claims investigated by Chris Fountain. More: AllahPundit.
- Louisiana politico Theriot: my suit against online critics is meant not to shut anyone up but to pick up useful tips on governance [Times-Picayune, Jefferson Report, Volokh, NY Times]
- South Carolina juries not allowed to hear evidence about seat belt use in car crashes [Pero]
- More links on “Lady KaGa” Supreme Court nomination [Cato at Liberty, Ted at PoL]
- Risk of “minor” injuries may result in end to Naval Academy tradition of stunt climb [John J. Miller, NRO]
- “Art of the Steal,” documentary on epic battle over donor intent in case of suburban Philadelphia Barnes collection [Kauffmann/TNR, L.A. Times, CultureGrrl/ArtsJournal]
- “Why Good Intentions are Often Not Enough: The Potential for Ethical Blindness in Legal Decision-Making” [Kath Hall (Australian National University), SSRN via Andrew Perlman, Legal Ethics Forum]
Sweet land of traffic stops
More states are toughening mandatory seat-belt laws in search of cash: for one thing, the federal government bribes them to do so, and that’s aside from the ticket revenue.
Update: Rose Marie Munoz v. Ford
We were curious what happened to the case of Rose Marie Munoz v. Ford, the $29 million verdict against an auto manufacturer when a 10-year-old recalled Firestone tire failed and a passenger who wasn’t wearing a seatbelt was ejected. Our original post had provoked a response from the plaintiffs’ lawyer, Roger S. Braugh, Jr.
$6.5 million to driver not wearing seatbelt
Ruben Zamora lost control of his Ford Explorer after a tread-tire separation, causing a rollover; because he was not wearing his seatbelt, he was ejected from the vehicle and suffered brain injuries. (His four passengers suffered only minor injuries.) This is, a LaSalle County, Texas state court jury decided, 65% the fault of Ford, putting them on the hook for $6.5 million in damages. Ford denies responsibility and will appeal. (Margaret Cronin Fisk, “Ford Loses $6.5 Million Verdict in Explorer Rollover”, Bloomberg, Feb. 4; “Auto news headlines,” Detroit Free Press, Feb. 5; Nick Sullivan, “Brain-Injured Man Awarded $6.5M in Texas Rollover Case”, Andrews Publications, Feb. 11). Until a 2003 tort reform, Ford would not even have been allowed to introduce evidence that Zamora was not wearing his seat belt.
Update: Mohr v. DaimlerChrysler $53 million verdict
DaimlerChrysler statement on the suit after the jump; it’s almost scandalous what the press accounts (Feb. 26)left out, but not as scandalous as the verdict. The unbelted Vickie Mohr was killed from blunt force trauma to the back of the head–caused when she was hit by the 245-pound unbelted passenger in the backseat. (The jury found that passenger, Carolyn Jones, responsible for only a small percentage.) Brett McAfee, the 17-year-old driver who killed the two plaintiffs when he fell asleep at the wheel going 45 mph, but was found slightly less than half-responsible by the civil jury, pleaded no contest to vehicular homicide criminal charges. (via Dodgeforum, which has an impressive array of photos of the totalled Durango Caravan).