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Tucson Shooting Prediction

January 24, 2011, 8:58 am

Here is the next bit of news I bet we will hear:  One of the victims or his/her families will sue Safeway, whose only involvement in the crime was that it had offered the parking lot as a location for Ms. Giffords constituent meeting.  Increasingly, though, the tort system is not about justice, but about finding deep pockets somehow tangentially connected to a tragedy.  I will bet that some lawyer right now is crafting a suit based on Safeway's inadequate security, poor judgement in allowing the meeting on their property, failure to warn customers of the potential dangers of attending such a political meeting, etc. etc.

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  • morganovich

    recall the notorious ATT suit:

    a guy was making a phone call in a phone booth when he was struck by a drunk driver and paralyzed.

    he sued ATT for siting the booth in a "dangerous" location and providing him with insufficient protection.

    he won.

    this is why you tend to see those big steel tubes filled with concrete around phone booths now.

  • http://dullgeek.blogspot.com dullgeek

    Reminds me of Steve Dallas' laws of lawsuits in which Steve gets punched in the face for trying to take a picture of Sean Penn. The question was who to sue.

    Sue Opus? No. First rule: do not sue those with no money
    Sue Sean Penn? No. He might hit you again.
    Sue Kodak - for not putting a warning on their camera

  • Andre

    Could switching to GEICO really save you 15% or more on car insurance?

    Is the deepest pocket going to get sued?

  • Roy

    Who will make that bet unless you provide odds good enough to make it worth risking losing to you?

  • Judge Fredd

    I'm not even going to bet on that. Waaaay too easy.

  • gadfly

    How about suing Pima County because Sheriff Dipshit failed to get Loughner off the streets despite citizen complaints and also failed to provide officers to insure order at the political gathering?

  • Vog

    People outside the US always marvel at how easy it seems to sue "everyone for everything" in the US. The guy who sued Macdonalds over being scalded by hot coffee comes to mind. I personally always chuckle at the warnings not to eat plastic wrapping and toys. Thank heavens for these warnings, I nearly popped that tasty looking plastic bubblewrap into my mouth!

  • caseyboy

    We need to adopt loser pays the costs of the winner. I've seen estimates that the case load would drop by over 50% by implementing such a rule. That 50% represents the types of lawsuits that drive us all to distraction. Another benefit would be a drop in law school enrollment.

  • Dan

    The loser pay argument is a good one. I'd like to see that.

    It would be sad inded if Safeway got sued, especially because if it lost, it would damage the ability of legislators to hold meetings with the public in public places, and that would directly threaten free speech and our representative democracy as a whole.

    Love the Steve Dallas reference, by the way, dullgeek! I hadn't thought of that in 20 years!