Posted on 08/16/2005 11:27:19 AM PDT by Graybeard58
A Burger King patron in Rockford, Ill., backs her car into a lamppost in the parking lot and then panics. She puts her car into drive and puts the pedal to the metal. She quickly loses control of her vehicle, which jumps the sidewalk and flies through a plate-glass window, striking and fatally injuring a patron.
Who was negligent in this freak accident? The driver? Or the deep-pockets restaurant, for improperly designing and constructing its building and sidewalk and for not installing protective barriers around the building?
If you said the latter, you should enroll in law school, if you aren't already a trial lawyer.
The dead patron's estate sued the restaurant chain for millions for "designing the building to be bricked up only a few feet from the ground, when the defendant(s) knew or should have known that ... may allow a vehicle from the parking lot to drive into the building, and crash through the glass on top of the brick."
The trial judge reasonably dismissed the suit, concluding the "likelihood of this scenario is so minor that to guard against it in the manner suggested would require fortifying every building within striking distance of any crazed or incredibly inept driver."
Stunningly, the dismissal was reversed by the Illinois Appellate Court, which said Burger King must safeguard its patrons from all possible accidents, no matter how improbable.
The restaurant chain's failure to do so in this case was "a breach of (its) duty of reasonable care, despite whatever cost or inconvenience would be involved in the exercise of that duty," the court ruled.
However, reasonable care is open to interpretation. Would it entail building a restaurant with a solid brick façade? If so, the car still might have crashed through the wall, and the patron would have been injured or killed by the car and falling bricks.
Either way, he still could have sued, claiming the solid wall prevented him from seeing the car coming and thereby robbed him of a chance to flee.
Perhaps Burger King should have built a wall strong enough to hold back a full-sized sedan, in which case one could be sure the first vehicle to hit the wall would have been a Hummer or a Navigator.
Maybe it should have restaurants that can withstand nuclear blasts, which of course would leave it liable for the wrongful death of the drivers of runaway cars who are killed crashing into the restaurants.
Each of these alternatives would meet the doctrine of reasonable care, yet each unreasonably leaves Burger King wide open to the abuses of the predatory trial bar. But that's the beauty of the damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't trial-lawyer racket.
Burger King has appealed to the Illinois Supreme Court. Here's hoping that justices have the common sense and decency to recognize that the reckless or incompetent driver killed the patron by putting her car in drive and then standing on the accelerator.
But isn't Burger King's motto "Have it your way"?
Hold the plate glass,
Hold the fortress,
Special lawuits--
liberal largess
All we ask is that you
let us
be sued your way...
/ducking
Whomever has the deepest pockets and can cover the most monthly payments on the all those Mercedes in the parking lot of every law firm.
Lawyers are a bane on rationality.
"First thing we do is we kill all of the lawyers."
Oh My God! That is the woman of my dreams!
And who incorporated Detroit as a city? The State of Michigan. Who allowed Michigan to become a state? The US government! Who runs the US Government? George Bush!! I knew it! It's all Bush's fault! I hereby demand his immediate resignation!!
I'll be sure to tell my wife, who works for a large law firm here in Michigan, that you send her, and her colleagues, your regards, bill.
Reading stories like this makes me reconsider that desire. It appears that common sense left the Illinois government a long time ago.
Building in accordance with the building code should be reasonable care.
Burger King should hire a hit man and get the lawyer.
Just out of curiosity; what did it say?
Of course I knew it was a joke ... we do it all the time, too. Attorneys know the rep the have and it doesn't faze them at all. Some probably embrace it.
Lawyers are strange, some are the nicest people outside of work but become sharks the minute they enter the office.
Sorry to hear about your ex, though.
While we're at it, can we "hit" that gay Burger King too? Those commercials creep me out. I ever see that weirdo smiling at me from my bedroom window, he'll be wearing that crown somewhere else.
You got me there, guy. ;^)
I was all set to reply that I was single handedly responsible for the bad rap that America has given the legal profession, and now I have to agree with you.
We split up a long time ago, but thanks for the thought.
I still remember her telling me the first thing that she learned in law school was:
"If you have the law, beat on the law."
"If you have the facts, beat on the facts."
"If you have nothing, beat on the table."
When I asked her where did "truth," or "honesty" play into any of that, she just gave me a dirty look.
Yeah, we lasted long. ;^)
That's about the size of it isn't it?
Whoever's at fault is whoever has the deepest pockets.
NO mention of age- I'll bet its a senior citizen who was LONG past the time when someone should have taken her keys away.
This happens more and more- they get 'confused'. They're confused when they get behind the wheel, or they're practically blind, or deaf, have motor skills problems and need walkers just to stay upright. But GolDarnit!, they can still control a couple of tons of machinery at 55mph- NOT!
Evidently this woman died, which is a shame. But too many do this and retain their licenses. If you can maintain a car and pay insurance on it, you can afford to call a cab once a week to go shopping. Their PRIDE is costing lives.
This is one of my pet peeves. Barely alive geezers who refuse to stop driving and families who let them. Agin is a fact of life. If you can be too young to drive, for reasoning and reflex reasons, then you certainly can be too old.
During the evac for Hurricane Ivan last year we watched in horror as a woman in the car next to us( traffic was creeping, thank God) drove with her eyes CLOSED and some kind of tremors-one handed. Tourettes, some kind of palsy- I don't know, but she never stopped jerking and shaking. I wouldn't have wanted to be near her when she was doing the speed limit.
This is what happens when you don't have BERM!!
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