This is what society has become, unfortunately.
Ironically, other cultures and countries are still sane on these liability issues. If you fall in a hotel bathtub, that’s too bad. It’s on you.
How many is too many? When will CONgress act and ban cliffs?
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Advice to the young: Don’t climb fences protecting you from a 50 foot drop while drunk.
And even then this doesn’t look like a “new” fence and so doesn’t need to be taller. Likely he just would have climbed that one as well.
Agreed. There should not be grounds for a lawsuit when someone is intentionally on the wrong side of a safety fence.
It’s a wonder anyone can sell fences anymore in America. Bidenskyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy’s Miggy Invasion made fences irrelevant.
Darwin will not be denied.
Cleaning the gene pool.
It’s a very sad situation for his family, but there was a fence put up, and it’s purpose was quite obvious.
The ‘Serial Killer Cliffs’ didn’t kill that kid.
His deliberate defiance of the safety rules was his undoing.
If the community was extremely unkind, and unbothered with public opinion, they could talk even about sueing the deceased’s family for the money it cost to recover the body. Something I imagine already being done in countries like China, Russia or Cuba.
“...6-foot-1 Jake climbed over a 42-inch tall metal wire fence onto a 33-inch wide concrete ledge, bordered by an 18-inch tall metal rail along the cliff’s edge”
Common sense lacking in so many in that generation...
All the best parties were down on DP.
If he hadn’t had that six-pack, he would still be alive.
It doesn’t look like those houses will last much longer, either. Then the problem will solve itself.
[... the 6-foot-1 Jake climbed over a 42-inch tall metal wire fence onto a 33-inch wide concrete ledge, bordered by an 18-inch tall metal rail along the cliff’s edge in an effort to make it to the gazebo. While trying to climb back over into the party, Jake lost his footing and fell about 50 feet to his death.]
(party) - intoxicated? high?
I gotta tell you, when I saw the headline my first thought was “Why don’t the owners put fences up near the cliff?”
Then you kindly included a picture. The fences are already there. If some unfortunate fool wants to climb over them, there’s not much more you can do. Even a six-foot tall fence wouldn’t deter a determined college kid.
Every Spring Break we have at least one drunk college student falling off a multistory hotel balcony.
Nobody sues the hotels and condos for having balconies.....................
This is California. Nothing is ever anybody’s fault.
He gets a Darwin Award for climbing over the fence. No doubt the hosts will be sued for serving alcohol and having an inadequate fence. However all Darwin awards are earned by personal choices.
He could have prevented it by not climbing the fence.
Based on what I read, I cannot imagine what the basis of criminal liability would be. Did the homeowner’s fence violate the local ordinance in height or construction? Did someone push this guy out and over the fence? Neither appear to be the case, they had a 3 foot fence in place, and this guy did a very stupid thing with tragic consequences. Nothing I’ve read here would indicate criminal liability on the part of anyone and sadly, sometimes the victim’s own actions are what is responsible for a waste of their lives.
He chose poorly....
Back in the old days before OSHA, I worked everyday with ironworkers that would walk across 8” beams 200’ in the air and thought nothing of it. This guy must have been so drunk that he couldn’t stay on a 33” wide paved section of concrete with an 18” high “last-warning” metal railing without staggering off the edge....crazy. He may have been so drunk/disoriented enough to trip over that lower railing.
Regardless, this lawsuit is utter BS.