Frivolous Lawsuits Vol. 5

Okay, instead of "Frivolous" lawsuits, maybe the title of this post should be "Downright Sad Miscarriage of Justice."  Here is yet another example of how pathetic the American legal system is, and this time it's not just costing someone a dollar amount but their livelihood.

We came up to NH for Christmas, and as we drove into town yesterday, just about every house had a "Free Ward Bird" sign on their front lawn.  I had to google it after we arrived and got settled.  Here's the story in a nutshell:

It’s a long story, but in the short– a woman trespassed on Ward’s property and he asked her several times to leave, but she refused. She claimed that Ward came out of his house with a gun, ran down his porch steps pointing it at her. At the time, Ward had only been home 9 days since emergency surgery for a ruptured abdominal aorta. Not only was he in no condition to do what she claims he did, he has always maintained that he never pointed or gestured towards her with the gun. Now he is doing 3 to 6 years in state prison because it was her word against his.

Amazing.  What happened to "Live Free or Die" New Hampshire?  If this had happened in Texas, he could have actually shot her for trespassing and would have been justified in doing it.  I scratched my head and wondered what crime Ward had committed in asking a trespasser to leave his property. 

This article provides a good explanation.  This is the part that really pissed me off:

The key element of the criminal threatening law, for example, appears to be not the state of mind of the person making the threat but the emotional state of the target of the threat. If the person is scared enough, then the person making the threat is guilty.

Unfortunately for Ward, it also comes with a mandatory 3-year minimum prison sentence.  That baffles me.  I could understand some circumstances in which that law might be useful, but the mandatory sentence leaves the judge no room to account for mitigating circumstances.  It seems pretty clear that the punishment didn't fit the "crime" in this case and the courts are enforcing the letter of the law without regard to its intent.  Even the judge himself didn't want to send Ward to jail.  It has the local community here in an uproar.  Now Ward, husband and father of four and Cub Scout den leader is behind bars.

Is it just me, or is our legal system all about making each of us out to be victims of some wrong by somebody else so we can sue them (or in this case send them to prison)?  This case has some similarity to my last Frivolous Lawsuits post. In that case, if you publicly say something bad or embarrassing about somebody, then they can't sue you for slander because what you said was true.  However, they CAN sue you under the invasion of privacy false light tort because what you said made them LOOK BAD and caused them some sort of emotional trauma.  In this case, it doesn't matter if someone is trespassing on your property and you have asked them to leave if the manner in which you ask them to leave causes them some fear or emotional trauma.

Our society has gone from a "the stupid shall be punished" philosophy to a "the stupid must be protected by the law so we don't emotionally traumatize them" and "what can I sue you for to get rich quick" modus operandi.

My thoughts and prayers are with Ward and his family tonight.  I sincerely hope SOMEBODY with authority in the NH government sees what a miscarriage of justice this is and has the fortitude and integrity to pardon Ward so he can be where he belongs - at home with his family on Christmas.

Frivolous Lawsuits Vol 4

Wow.

I learned a new legal term today.  I don't say "wow" because my legal vocabulary is so extraordinary that it would be unusual for me to learn a new legal term.  I say "wow" because it blows my mind that you can sue someone for this.

Case in point:

So lemme get this straight...

You agreed to go on this reality TV show, correct?

Yes.

You knew you were going to be filmed and put on national TV, right?

Yes.

You drank a hefty amount of alcohol?

Yes.

You made a fool of yourself in front of the cameras?

Yes.

Aaaaaand now you think MTV should pay you $5 million fooooooor... what exactly?

Invasion of privacy under the "false light" tort.

Wait, but you agreed to be on the show, correct?

Yes.

You knew they were going to film you and put you on national TV, correct?

Yes.

So somehow it's MTV's fault that you drank too much and behaved poorly in front of the camera???

[Cricket's chirping]

I was pretty darn sure the high-paid lawyers who work for the networks would have put some sort of silly legal disclaimer in the contract about, "If I act like a dumbass in front of the camera, it's my own darned fault and I can't sue the network because it's not their fault that I'm a dumbass."

Then I looked up "false light" on wikipedia.  This part blows my mind:

False light differs from defamation primarily in being intended "to protect the plaintiff's mental or emotional well-being" rather than protect a plaintiff's reputation as is the case with the tort of defamation^[1] and in being about the impression created rather than being about true or false.

So you can't sue them for defamation because (a) it's TRUE that you drank too much and acted like an idiot in front of the camera on national TV, and (b) you're not trying to protect your reputation.  However, you CAN sue them for showing the world that you ARE an idiot and because it adversely impacted your emotional well-being???  

I can imagine some circumstances in which I've done something dumb, but figured nobody needed to know, and if someone published or broadcast it then I would be upset that everyone knew I was an idiot.  In this case though, you AGREED to go on TELEVISION.  You VOLUNTEERED for them to broadcast your behavior to the world - good or bad, so if you behaved badly, then it's your own darn fault!!!

I suppose I should just feel glad that if I ever do make a fool of myself in public, I can sue people for publicizing my stupidity and affecting my emotional well being.   Ahhh, the American legal system! :-)

Dispicable

Warning: If you're already in a bad mood or are on your way out on a hot date and don't want to go in a despondent bad mood, then don't read this post.

It's gonna piss you off.

I want to add this to the files of frivolous lawsuits, although I don't know the technical details of the lawsuit itself. Even so, this story is a totally demoralizing indication of what an embarrassment the American legal system has become.

The judge and the lawyers who brokered this deal should be disbarred and forced to attend the funeral of every American servicemember killed in action for the next 12 months. As for that organization that calls itself a church and holds anti-homosexual rallies outside of funeral services for American service members... words fail me. It's simply disgraceful.

To help out a grieving USMC father with legal costs incurred by these wackos that call themselves a church, click on the link above.

Teenage Independence and ORM

Did you know about this?

At this very moment as my fingers clatter across the keyboard, there are not one but TWO separate 16 year old girls sailing solo around the world. Each are attempting to earn the title of the youngest person to sail solo and non-stop around the world.

Jessica Watson was the first to depart her home on the east coast of Australia about four months ago. She has already crossed the Pacific and is most of the way across the Atlantic on her way toward the Cape of Good Hope.

Abby Sunderland left her home in Southern California heading south a few weeks ago. That ended up being a sort of shake-down cruise because she had to pull into Cabo San Lucas for repairs. She has embarked again on her around-the-world cruise a few days ago and just crossed the equator southbound.

There's a fair amount of open-press criticism of these girls' parents for allowing them to take on such a challenge.

I have mixed feelings about it.

I've written before about how much I appreciated my parents fostering my independence and giving me a "long leash" so-to-speak. Most of my friends parents would never let them do half the stuff I did as a teenager - such as solo international travel to Canada (from San Diego - that's a long trip), Japan, Korea, and England, or driving hours to the Oregon coast to go scuba diving for the weekend. The former-proudly-independent-teenager in me thinks it's awesome that Jessica and Abby's parents trusted them to embark on such an ambitious journey.

However, my perspective has changed significantly as a naval officer and as a parent. I'm sure Jessica and Abby are both very responsible and trustworthy, but there's more to it than trust.

As an officer in the Navy, I have had Operational Risk Management (ORM) chiseled in the back of my head and traumatically reinforced in watching two shipmates lose their lives in rough seas. In layman's terms, ORM is all about cost-benefit analysis. Are the benefits of doing something worth the risks, and if so, what things can you do to reduce the likelihood and severity of the risks?

In the case of my solo travels as a teenager, I think my parents exercised good ORM. In each case, I may have been flying alone (as a passenger on a major airline), but I was staying with friends of the family at each destination and knew where and how to seek help if I needed it.

From an ORM standpoint, I don't think letting your teenager (boy or girl) sail solo around the world passes the cost-benefit analysis. In the Navy, we use justifications like "national security" as the benefits for taking such risks. What possible benefit could possibly be worth the risk of death in rough seas or a collision or a medical emergency in a civilian recreational sailing vessel? Each of these girls are sailing thousands of miles from shore and have little to no hope of rescue or assistance. What happens when one of them gets appendicitis and needs emergency surgery? On a nuclear submarine, even though our corpsman is technically qualified to remove an appendix in an emergency, we will fully employ the many thousands of shaft horsepower under the hood to hurl us toward the nearest port for a MEDEVAC (medical evacuation) of a crew-member with symptoms of appendicitis.

Backing up just a bit, I mentioned above that Abby had to pull into Cabo San Lucas for repairs. It turns out, she wasn't the only one. Jessica Watson also required a stop for repairs before she got very far from home. Between reading that article about Jessica and watching some of the interview videos on Abby's website, I have serious doubts about each of these girl's qualifications to embark on such a journey. As a submariner, we go through a lot of qualifications, and they start out with basic system knowledge - understanding the theory behind the how the equipment operates so you can then understand your equipment's limitations and operating precautions. Reading the article about the Jessica's accident and watching the interviews with Abby didn't give me a warm-fuzzy feeling about either of their technical understanding of the capabilities and limitations of their gear.

Aside: One of the first things I learned during sailing lessons in San Diego Bay with aircraft carriers and cruise ships passing by was the "BGT Rule" (Big Gray Thing), a.k.a. the law of gross tonnage. Jessica didn't really violate the BGT Rule because she was in the rack and her radar alarm didn't warn her there was a big-ass many-thousand-ton merchant (63,800 tonnes to be exact) about to turn her into road kill flotsam. Can you imagine if Jessica's collision had happened in America? If it had, there certainly would have been some wacko frivolous lawsuit filed soon thereafter blaming the radar manufacturer for the collision because the proximity alarm didn't go off.

Sorry, I digress. Back on topic now.

As a parent, I will encourage my boys to be responsible and earn the level of trust and independence so that they can go forth on their own. We all have to let our kids go out into the world on their own someday. Even when they have earned that trust though, it is still my responsibility as a parent to provide a safety net and to provide that "forceful backup" we talk about so often in the submarine force. As their ISIC (Immediate Superior in Command), it's my responsibility to evaluate their training, qualifications, equipment, and readiness to embark on adventures that will take them away from home and out of range of my ability to render assistance. Based on what I've seen and read on Jessica and Abby's blogs, if I was their father, then I would not have allowed them go to on this around-the-world cruise solo.

I'm sure if Jessica or Abby's parents and supporters read this, they will say that they did carefully evaluate the risks and implement safety measures to mitigate those risks, like having a "ditch bag" of emergency supplies in case they have to abandon ship. Personally, I think the ditch bag is probably more for easing the parents' fears than an actual, practical life-saving measure (unless she ditches like 100 yards from some tropical island). Going back to ORM - even with things like a ditch bag, there is a RISK of a small craft like these sailboats succumbing to rough seas, or the single crew member getting washed overboard, or colliding with a merchant (or, gulp, dare-I-say - a submarine?), all of which hold the possible outcome of death to that single crewmember. Again, what's the benefit of this endeavor? What's to be gained that makes it worth risking the death of your daughter? That's permanent. You can't turn back the clock to undo death. It's too late - no amount of lawsuits will bring your child back from the dead.

It just doesn't pass the ORM test.

Although I don't agree with the decision to let them go in the first place, now that they are out there on their own, I am praying for Jessica and Abby's safety. I wish Jessica and Abby all the best and sincerely hope they both make it home safe and sound.

Frivolous Lawsuits & Silly Legal Disclaimers Vol 37 Ed 3

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer nor any sort of legal expert.

In my layman's understanding of common law, there is a basic principle called nuisance.

In grad school, I took a class called Environmental Security. It was team-taught by three professors, one of whom was a lawyer. One of the legal principles he taught us in that class was the principle of nuisance. It just kinda made intuitive sense to me and has stuck in my brain ever since. One of the key elements of nuisance was that it had to be something new - it couldn't be a pre-existing condition.

For example, consider the case of jet noise from a Navy airfield. Let's say the airfield is already there. Then some dude decides to build or buy a house next to the airfield. In that case, the guy couldn't sue the Navy because of the jet noise being a nuisance. The airfield was already there, and the guy sure as heck knew it was there and knew there'd be jet noise when he bought the house under the landing pattern. If, on the other hand, the guy had been living in his house, and the Navy came in and built a new airfield next to his house that he already owned, then he could sue the Navy for the nuisance of the jet noise.

For a civilian example, consider a tree that blocks or obscures a neighbor's otherwise-beautiful view. If I buy a house, and there's a tree in the neighbor's yard that blocks my view of the sunrise over Mount Hood, then too bad. I can't sue my neighbor to take down the tree because it's obstructing my view because the tree was already there when I bought the house. On the other hand, if I buy a house with a beautiful view, and then the neighbor plants a new tree that obstructs my beautiful view, then I can sue him for the tree being a nuisance. I was there first.

Alright? Make sense? Are you with me?

Now read this.

So lemme get this straight...

1. You researched the colleges in the area.
2. You went and visited the colleges you were most interested in.
3. You applied to the colleges that met your personal preferences and selection criteria.*
4. Out of the 27 institutions of higher learning in the great state of Vermont (or 2,024 universities in the great U.S. of A.), you CHOSE to go to Green Mountain College where all seven dorms (and bathrooms) are co-ed.
5. Now that you're there, you're suing the college because the bathrooms are co-ed????

*Let's rewind to step 3 above. Shouldn't one of your personal preference / selection criteria have been, "Single-sex bathrooms available"? I suppose when she toured the campus and saw the co-ed dorms and bathrooms, she giggled and girlishly blushed and thought of those times she would accidentally get a peek at some cute guy coming out of the shower. She must not have had any brothers or lived around any guys, because it didn't turn out as sexy and romantic as she thought. Suddenly she finds herself grossed-out by college guys' bathroom cleanliness (or lack thereof), not shutting the door when they pee, or peeking at HER in the shower.

Then again, maybe she intentionally chose this college just so that she could sue them and help pay for the tuition.

Chalk this one up as another frivolous lawsuit to clog our courts and make a laughing stock of our legal system.

I bet the next round of prospective freshmen visiting the campus will discover some silly sign at the front gates, "WARNING: Co-Ed Dorm and Bathroom Facilities. This college is not responsible for any embarrassing or gross experiences related to the personal hygiene of the opposite sex. Because we posted this sign to officially warn you, you can't sue us."

That reminds me... (Warning, tangent ahead.)

When we went to the Kennedy Center on Friday, there was one sign that was duplicated and posted EVERYWHERE. Seriously, there was one of these signs about every ten feet throughout the parking garage. Let's have some fun with this one. I'll pose this as a multiple-choice quiz and see if you can guess it.

What was written on the signs posted every 10 feet in the Kennedy Center parking garage?

A) Speed Limit 5 mph
B) No Back-In Parking
C) Kennedy Center is not responsible for damage or theft of valuables
D) Caution: Speed Bump
E) Absolutely No Drilling in the Ceiling

What do you think? Got your answer? Are you ready?

Friday night was just one of those times when I saw a sign, scratched my head, and said to myself, "Self, I wonder what outrageous and extremely rare alignment of the planets caused them to post THAT particular sign every 10 feet." It's one of those cases where you know they posted the sign because somebody tried it. Otherwise, nobody would have ever guessed that a sign was necessary. The answer was E) Absolutely No Drilling in the Ceiling.

Seriously?

Who could have thought up something like that unless someone had tried it. Why not post signs that say, "No Hitting the Cars with Sledge Hammers" or "No Spray Painting on the Walls" or "No Bazookas Allowed." Actually, I should have included those in the quiz instead. If you had asked me ahead of time, I totally would have guessed "No Spray Painting on the Walls" would be a more likely warning sign than "Absolutely No Drilling in the Ceiling." I would have guessed "No Longaberger Baskets Allowed" would have been just about as probable as "No Drilling in the Ceiling."

Can you imagine the poor guy that says to himself, "Self... gee, what to do on a Friday night? Hmmm. I KNOW!!! Let's go drill some holes in the ceiling of the Kennedy Center parking garage!" Imagine his glee as he put on his toolbelt, grabbed his DeWalt and the drill bits, hopped in his pickup truck and headed for the Kennedy Center. Imagine he was just giddy with excitement as he shelled out his $18 to pull into the parking lot.

Then he read the sign(s).

Imagine his disappointment... the pout on his lips... the slump of his shoulders... the power-drill hanging limply in his hand... It's like they just canceled Christmas.

Now what's he gonna do with his Friday night?

I need a lawyer

Anybody wanna help me sue the Washington Post?

Dear Washington Post,

STOP LITTERING ON MY PROPERTY!!!!

- I didn't ORDER the newspaper.
- I don't WANT the newspaper.
- I'm tired of picking up YOUR TRASH ON MY DRIVEWAY.

STOP IT!!!!

Sincerely,
Blunoz

I've contacted the Washington Post FOUR times now and asked them to STOP delivering the newspaper to my house. Yet, every morning, there's a newspaper laying in my driveway. They go directly into the recycle bin.

Will somebody with legal smarts out there please tell me how many times I have to ask them to stop before I can sue them for littering on my property? Then maybe I can add myself to the list of frivolous lawsuits.

I was trying to think of some other way to get the attention of the IMBECILE who delivers the newspaper on our street and won't stop leaving them at my house. I wish I knew what TIME he drove through so I could more adequately develop a plan to get his attention. How about some of those little spike things in the road that the state troopers use to pop tires and stop high-speed chases?

Apparently I'm not the only one with this problem.

Frivolous Lawsuits & Silly Legal Disclaimers Part II

So we went to Target to pick up a few things.

Walking through the home decorations, I happened upon this cute little globe...


Ask ANY submarine officer (and probably ANY naval officer) what legal disclaimer they would expect to see on ANY geographic product, and I bet you 99% of them will give you the same answer. Come on guys, say it together with me now:

"Not to be used for navigation."

Well, as I slowly turned this cute little globe around in my hand, I came upon a very startling legal disclaimer, and considering how recently I wrote about frivolous lawsuits and the resultant ridiculous legal disclaimers, I burst out laughing.

The Disclaimer:
NOT FOR EDUCATIONAL USE
ONLY FOR DECORATIVE PURPOSE

Oddly enough, this little globe could actually serve as an educational device to demonstrate the challenges of cartography and trying to print a representation of a three dimensional surface on a two-dimensional piece of paper. In this case, those challenges are highlighted by the attempt to cut and fold said piece of paper onto a spherical object to make it look like a globe.

Look!!! The polar ice caps melted and
swallowed Alaska and half of Greenland!

But alas, I can't use it for education.

In order to file a complaint with the manufacturer over their product, I thought I would visit their office in India. Since they didn't say I couldn't use the globe for Navigation, I figured I'd use this handy-dandy globe as my guide to seek out their office...

...but alas, those clever guys at the factory managed to HIDE their home office in Mumbai.

Okay, so as far as get-rich-quick schemes go, I can't really sue the manufacturer since they're in India.

But surely I sue the company that imported the globes, can't I?

Frivolous Lawsuits

I think we've all had one of those moments where you see something, your jaw drops to the floor in amazement and disbelief, and you say to yourself, "Self, that is SURELY the result of some sort of frivolous lawsuit."

The legal disclaimers we see on products today often leave me wondering what the HECK some idiot did that caused the company to put THAT statement on the warning label or user manual.

We have become an "I'm a Victim" society. We seem to think that if the user manual doesn't tell us NOT to do something, then it's okay for us to try it. If it doesn't work out, then we can sue the manufacturer for the physical damages and or emotional trauma that result.

What happened to common sense?

Do you think major corporations today have some sort of "red team" that sits around thinking up bizarre ways people are going to hurt themselves by using the company's product in a totally unintended way?

Why do I ask?

After church today we went to Arby's to lunch.

In the boys' kids meals, they each got an Arby's toy. They're plastic, in the shape of the Arby's hat (I'll show you a picture here in just a sec). One was a magnifying glass, and the other was a pen. (Yippie. Try to contain your excitment. Actually, the kids were pretty excited, although I'm not really sure why.)

These toys came with a little slip of paper instructions with a full length paragraph on how to use the toy. The slips of paper were even unique and specific to the pen versus the magnifying glass, and the last sentence of the paragraph (for both the pen and the magnifying glass) was,

"This is a toy and is not intended to be used as a piece of survival equipment."

Uhhhh... SERIOUSLY???

Arby's Magnifying Glass

I mean, what is the likelihood that someone would see this in their kid's happy meal and say, "Oooh, I need a magnifying glass for my trip to the Amazonian rain forests next weekend!" Furthermore, what's the likelihood that even if that person DID take this magnificent magnifying glass with them, that the magnifying glass would somehow fail to perform it's function? What, does it dissolve in water? Does it melt in temperatures above 90F?

And why is the same disclaimer on the pen instructions? How is a pen supposed to be used as a piece of survival equipment? Only one scenario comes to my mind. Imagine if you will... I'm stranded on a tropical island. I somehow happen upon a scroll of paper and a bottle. Here's my chance to write my distress note in a message in a bottle. I reach into my pocket. Since I ate lunch at Arby's with my family before I got onto the airplane that crashed on this island, I HAPPEN to have an Arby's kid's meal PEN in my pocket. But alas, I recall reading the instructions that came with said pen, and I say to myself, "Self, this is NOT a survival tool. I think writing a distress note for a message in a bottle technically qualifies as an act of survival, so I better not use this pen."

OR!

In a momentary lapse of judgement, I USE the pen to WRITE my distress note. My bottle washes up on the shore of a thriving metropolis with the maritime projection capability to rescue me, but the ink faded in the sunlight as it traversed the miles across the open ocean, so my distress note was illegible. Twenty years later when my beard reaches my toes, the staff of CBS arrives on my deserted island looking for a new place to host the next season of Survivor. They take me back to civilization, and I SUE ARBY'S because nobody ever rescued me. ...Only the judge doesn't find in my favor because Arby's specifically stated in the instructions that it's NOT a survival tool.

No?

Well, I can think of some MUCH MORE LIKELY as well as IMPROPER uses of these toys. If it were ME sitting in that corporate red team board room, I would have suggested some alternative legal disclaimers.

How about...

- Do not stick this pen in any sort of electrical outlet.

- Do not stick this pen in a toaster (unless you at least unplug the toaster first).

- Do not use this pen to dislodge any paper jams from your copy machine.

- Do not use this pen to override a safety feature on a power tool.

- Do not stick this pen up your nose.

- Do not stick this pen in your ear.

- Better yet, to cover all the bases, do not stick this pen in any of your bodily orifices, nor those of your sibling, parental unit, neighbor, cousin, friend, acquaintance, random-passerby, classmate, teacher, librarian, school bus driver, grocer, gas station attendant, video rental store clerk, barber, trash collector, IRS agent, pet, farm animal, or zoo creature.

[Light goes off over head!]

Actually, no. I'VE GOT IT!!!

Are you ready for my new get-rich-quick scheme???

I'm going to start a small fire with my eldest son's Arby's magnifying glass, and the fire will accidentally consume some prize possession... Hmmmm, what prize possession shall we throw in accidentally allow to be consumed by the fire? Oh, I've got it! The fire will accidentally consume my youngest son's precious Arby's Kid's Meal PEN!

THEN! I'm going to SUE ARBY'S because they didn't write "Not to be used as a fire-starting device" on the instructions or include a diagram of the fire triangle and proper fire safety watch procedures. Surely the emotional trauma and anguish to YB will be worth a couple of million bucks.

VIOLA! I'M RICH!!!

How much did the "victim" in the McD's hot coffee lawsuit get?

Ah, yes, $2.7 million.

Incidentally, I found the answer in this quick summary of the Top Ten Frivolous Lawsuits. They're just totally bizarre.

But seriously... not to be used as a SURVIVAL TOOL????