What Happened to Common Sense and Personal Responsibility?

Friday, April 14, 2006

An "attractive nuisance"? Two teenagers climb on top of an electric train, and get electric burns, and the train company is the one who's negligent? How can this be? I've trespassed in my younger days, but I knew it was wrong. I knew that if I got hurt it would have been my own fault.

This is how we've ended up with windshield shades that say "Don't drive with this in place". I don't think that it's because there really are that many stupid people, it's because there are that many greedy people who can sue their way to riches by blaming someone else for their own wanton disregard for personal safety. Shame on them for not living up to their own responsibilities.

Law.com

2006-04-16: Liz and I talked about this, and she suggested, and I agree, that a good tool for a judge would be a way of not awarding damages, but requiring a company to meet a stricter public warning standard. I think in such a case the judge would need to have punitive capability as a stick to force companies to adhere to new standards.

However, if you strip away all else I still feel that once someone is trespassing then they are responsible for their own health and life. I also feel that few deterrents would thwart a seventeen-year-old, and so it's unreasonable to expect a company to block every attempt to trespass.