Posted on 06/22/2021 12:02:51 PM PDT by tlozo
This mailbox sure delivers a big surprise.
An Ohio man who built a virtually indestructible mailbox because he was sick of people smashing it is being sued by a motorist who crashed into the thing and got paralyzed, according to a report.
Matthew Burr allegedly turned his front-yard letter box into a postal fortress, by constructing it out of a thick metal post that was buried three feet in the ground and reinforced with rocks and cement, according to reports.
It was so strong that when plaintiff Cletus Slay’s pickup truck slid off the road on some black ice in December 2016 and rammed into the box, it allegedly caused his vehicle to flip over and left him seriously injured, Slay’s lawyer, Kathleen St. John, told a panel of Ohio Supreme Court judges Wednesday, according to News 5 Cleveland.
Burr took the extreme measure to fortify his mailbox after it was repeatedly vandalized over the years, including being knocked over, having a pumpkin thrown at it and vehicles clipping it, the outlet reported.
While the mailbox’s construction goes against Federal Highway Administration guidelines, it’s not illegal, News 5 reported.
Nevertheless, Slay’s lawyers argued that it was wrong to make something that could be so dangerous in the event of an innocent accident.
“The hazardous object in this case is a severely reinforced mailbox post,” the outlet reported of St. John’s arguments. “An owner of property is not justified in inflicting, without warning, bodily harm upon the person of a trespasser or petty pilferer by means of traps, spring guns or instrumentalities of destruction unless he would have been justified in using that force if he had been personally present...
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
I believe there are laws on the books that make property owners liable for damage to others if they don’t maintain their trees safely. Weak or overhanging branches are supposed to be removed,
One of my former neighbors mailbox kept getting wiped out by the snowplow in the winter.
One spring he decided to fix it. He took his backhoe and dug a hole 5’ deep. He stuck a 16” sonotube down in it that came up 5’ above grade. He called the cement mixer truck and filled it. There was also 1/2” rebar in it vertically and horizontally to hold up his mailbox at the proper height. He stuck a 4” PVC pipe below that to hold a newspaper.
That was in 1991. It still looks good today. The plow guy never took out his mailbox again.
I also remember the rest of the story.
McDonald's had a company policy to set the coffee temperature SCALDING hot, so people in the store wouldn't be able to drink it quickly enough to get a refill.
The jury found that deliberately providing a dangerously hot product went beyond mere negligence.
So you think juries are not capricious?
It isn't no-fault. It was the fault of the guy driving his vehicle too fast for conditions.
Cletus? Seriously?
Cletus D. Yokel...from The Simpsons. :)
Sorry but you might abstain from drinking heavily when you are about to drive. He crashed into someone’s private property.
The owner owes him nothing.
I liked the custom mail box that when hit with a bat, etc. would release a pole that would dent the perp’s car..
I bet the mailbox is in the right of way. Should have sued the city for allowing that.
Ole Cletus ought to slow down when there's a chance of ice on the road.
Regards,
Most of the time juries act in good faith, based on their ability to understand the evidence, the law, and act within His or Her Honor's instructions.
Still, people can be swayed by their unrelated life experiences or their emotions played upon by a skilled manipulator.
"No man's life, liberty or property are safe as long as congress court in in session" ~ Gideon J. Tucker, paraphrased...
I wish I were a judge on this case. I’d make him pay both sides of attorney fees and tell him stop wasting the courts time.
They are beauties. My HOA would never allow it. At least our mail boxes have to be the exact same. Lettering and numbers as well. We do t have idiots playing baseball with our mail boxes luckily. Also we don’t have idiots crashing into the boxes like this jerk.
Up heyah in Maine, fixin’ up your letterbox is an annual event after a winter of snowplowing. It’s wikkid hahhd on the gear!
As older large oaks and maples died, many municipalities replaced them with smaller trees. A lot of that was to lessen removal costs as well as liability for falling limbs striking pedestrians, homes, or powerlines, etc. but the result to traffic is the same.
Utility poles in some of these neighborhoods run down the alleys behind the houses instead of curbside. Many curbside utility poles that are right up to the street actually have guardrails depending on the speed limit. It may not seem possible but believe it that telephone poles are designed to shear if struck hard enough.
Fire hydrants are designed to separate at a collar low to the ground, (leading to geysers for some of them - in the northern areas they just shear off since the water valves are placed below the frost line).
High speed traffic from the opposing direction will have Jersey barriers or medians in between depending on the speed limit and how much room is available.
These concrete and brick mailbox pillars right at the curb are an avoidable risk.
While the mailbox’s construction goes against Federal Highway Administration guidelines, it’s not illegal.
So shut up and take your ambulance chaser with you case closed.
Sounds like the safest Nerf village ever. I need to move there.
I don’t see where it says if the mailbox survived the impact. I would like to know if the design was sufficient or if I should add more steel....
I’m not sure I buy that there are no standards. My best friends folks had taken a 55 gallon barrel and filled it with concrete and a post for their mailbox and the post office refused to deliver until it was removed.
Told them that it wasn’t the USPS fault that people were hitting/vandalizing it.
Driving too fast for conditions is more avoidable risk than a heavy duty mailbox
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