Friend was waiting in driveway in car, car #2 lost control and clipped his bumper. Tiny dent. Car 3 came along from other direction and stopped to see what’s up. Car 4 rear ended car 3. Passenger in car 4 claimed injury. Sued all 4 drivers. Friend in car 1 had to give deposition to get dismissed for case.
So does VDC suggest that if one is an innocent victim of a shooting it was the victims fault be because they did not get out of the way of a bullet? Give me a break.
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I’m fascinated that you could come up with that bizarre scenario and make that assumption regarding my perception of it.
Please explain–in detail–how you concluded that this would represent my opinion.
That’s just absurd.
The ONLY time someone in front could possibly be held liable is if the suddenly swerved in front of a car and slammed on the brakes…AND there were witnesses to it happening.
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Happened to me twice…and yes you do sit there…cause if you move you end up getting hit by the cross traffic which is much much worse - and then it would be YOUR fault.
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What amazes me is it got this far. This should have been thrown out long before it reached a trial.
A couple of years ago I was second in line at a left turn only red light. There was a big F-150 behind me and a Honda Accord behind him. The guy in front of me decided he couldn’t wait any longer for the light to turn green. I guess 15 seconds too long. So he safely goes through the red light. I move up to the stop line. The Truck behind me moves up to where I was and the woman in the Accord thought the light turned green and we were all going through it…and she plowed into the back of the pickup. I heard the noise and got to look…and she was pissed…Front of her accord was all mangled…the F150 had a bent bumper…and my truck was never hit.
A month goes by and I get a notice that I’m being SUED by the woman in the Accord. First day in court the judge threw out the case against me and the F150 owner.
People can sue all they want…it’s up to the courts to weed out these frivolous law suits.
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First, it should be noted that the “Twinkie defense” is an urban legend and never actually happened. What actually happened in the Twinkie case is that Dan White, who had entered city hall carrying a loaded gun and by climbing through a basement window to avoid metal detectors, snuck around a body guard, killed the Mayor of San Francisco, and then reloaded before walking across the hall and killing Harvey Milk, was found guilty only of manslaughter because the jury did not believe his actions to have been premeditated.
The defense claimed that the murder was not premeditated because White was suffering from depression and incapable of planning the crime. They brought in a doctor to testify that the normally health conscious White’s switch to a diet of junk food was evidence of that depression, not that the junk food caused him to kill two people.
But similar cases have happened. The “affluenza” defense of Ethan Couch, who killed 4 people and paralyzed another while driving drunk and high, claimed that he wasn’t responsible for his actions because he was a rich kid and had been taught that wealth buys privilege and therefore that his actions did not have consequences. That was a successful defense in that Couch got shipped to a rehab facility instead of getting 20 years in jail as anyone else would have.
An attorney is duty bound to give his client the best defense possible. Even if that defense is ridiculous. The “affluenza” lawyers knew, I guarantee, that they were making a stupid argument. But based on what their client did and was known to have done, stupid arguments were all they had left, and sometimes stupid arguments stick, so you’ve gotta try them.
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A lawyer is also bound to tell their client if they have a case or not…and many times the best defense is pleading guilty…especially to a lesser charge.
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And if the client says “I’m absolutely not pleading guilty,” the attorney has to go with that.
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Frustrating. Very soon, most new cars will have forward collision prevention (FCP) with auto-braking. This will augment the already common brake force distribution systems that apply full braking when a panic stop is detected. All new Toyota models going forward get the FCP technology, including the majority on sale now, and every automaker has promised to make it standard on all models by about 4 or five years from now. Real-world studies by HDLI and IIHS have proven by comparing accident data from multiple models that offer it as an option that it reduces rear-end collisions by 40%. The single most costly type of crash in America is not the fatal big front end crashes we all worry about, but rather, front to rear impacts and the resulting whiplash and vehicle damage costs. I’ve had the technology save my bacon as has Ezra Dryer of Popular Mechanics and Car and Driver. It works. Can’t come soon enough IMHO.
Yup!
And, I am astounded that so many people seem to be unaware of that reality.
In addition, there have been cases of attorneys who refused to take cases, and were later severely sanctioned by the court, so an attorney who wants to stay out of trouble doesn’t really doesn’t have much of an option other than to accept a case and to try to provide an effective defense for his client. And, that defense may well include claims that many will find to be ridiculous.
Remember, an attorney who is defending you doesn’t have to prove that you are not guilty. All that he/she needs to do is to introduce enough doubt of guilt into the minds of the jurors so that they can’t reasonably come to the conclusion that the client is guilty.
People who are exonerated in court are never found to be “innocent”, although many people misrepresent the situation as such. In reality, they are found “not guilty”, and not being found guilty does not mean that you are innocent.
A finding of “not guilty” merely means that the jurors were unable to conclude that, by a preponderance of the evidence (in civil cases), or beyond a reasonable doubt (in criminal cases) the defendant was guilty.
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Yup!
There is almost as much misinformation regarding the actual facts of that murder case as there are regarding the so-called McDonald’s Hot Coffee Case. Trust me…most of you are probably misinformed regarding the actual facts of the latter case.
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People are idiots these days. I almost hit someone who was running a red light 10 seconds after it had turned green for me. I locked up the brakes and honked so they gave me the finger as they just kept on going like 6 inches from my front bumper. This was in the afternoon hours. I am out doing service work and always say to avoid the afternoon hours if you can as this is when the real idiots come out. The number of idiots goes up exponentially right at the 3rd of each month and then they have retreated to wherever they came from until the next month rolls around. Forget the ides of March. The 3rd of the month is when it gets scary around here.
I have actually had a few dandies try crap with me unrelated to driving. Two customers have paid me for my services and then demanded some of their money back as I overcharged them since they found someone else who could do it cheaper. I thought I was doing one guy a favor. He had some psycho after him and wanted security cameras put up ASAP. I had a full week scheduled and dropped everything to take care of this job. Of course he wanted it cheap too and I told him he was paying full price if I was going to butt him in line as I had a busy schedule. Well, he called me the afternoon before and I was there early next morning getting on this job. He seemed happy with the cameras when I was done so I thought all was well. Then he found that he could have hired someone cheaper and threatened to sue me to get the difference back. I told him “Go ahead, make my day.” Someone else might have been cheaper but he was going to have to wait like a month to have the cameras put up. Remember you have to pay for convenience and speed as well as the work.
The other one was someone who had a somewhat unique job that no one else was willing to do. The other issue is that they were located out in the middle of nowhere and no one else was willing to travel that far. Of course I am willing to travel as far as required but charge my normal rate for travel time. So, I do the job and they seem so grateful that I did it as they had been looking for someone to do it for 2-3 years. No one else within 100 miles would do it. It wasn’t that bad of a job but certainly not a “cookie cutter” either. I left feeling good. Then next week I get this nasty e-mail about how I overcharged and ripped them off. They demanded I refund them the money for the travel time as well as $10/hr off my hourly rate as the amount I charged “was just too much.” Keep in mind these people own a sprawling ranch and have at least two private aircraft. The threats they were making amounted to an extortion attempt so I made sure to save the e-mails in case anything further came of this. I told them I wasn’t giving in and never heard from them again. I talked with others about this and apparently crap like this is their normal operating procedure as they are known for being difficult. Keep in mind the woman made note of the two times I got up to take a piss and that I charged her for that. A guy takes like 30 seconds to go and I held it until there was a process going that took longer than my bathroom break.
You mean the part where McDonalds held their coffee 50+ degrees hotter than they were supposed to, even after having gotten over 700 reports from customers who had burned themselves on 190 degree coffee, and were therefore negligent because they intentionally delivered dangerously hot product to their customers without adequate warnings?
Dad was a lawyer. He just rolled his eyes at the general public’s reaction to that case.
The best part is that McDonalds continues to serve 190 degree coffee to this day.
Unfortunately it happens here in NH and MA all the time. When light turns green and there’s cross traffic…I always wait for the cars that will run the red light. It’s absurd sometimes. Especially during rush-hour. I’ve seen a light turn red where the front car should have stopped…and he went through…followed by 10 other cars - each riding the bumper in front of them so no one who has the green light can proceed.
Mr. Watkin, why do you continue to complain about your unrelated work problems on a auto related forum. Yes, working for the public can be miserable but we can’t help you with that.
Yeah, that part.
Even though I derive a significant part of my income from McDonald’s stock, I despise the misinformation campaign that the company used, to portray the elderly victim as the guilty party. Because of the success of that misinformation campaign, I guess we should consider that campaign to have been an early instance of fake news. Thank God that they didn’t claim she killed people, as in the modern myth of the Bowling Green Massacre. 
Every product carries an implied Warranty of Merchantability–meaning that the product must be fit for the purpose for which it is sold–and if your beverage is served at such a high temperature that it will cause such severe burns as to necessitate skin grafts, it is entirely reasonable to make a legal argument that this product did not comply with the Warranty of Merchantability.
For years, I avoided buying McDonald’s coffee, simply because it was so hot that I couldn’t drink it unless I let it sit for at least 10-15 minutes. Just imagine what would happen to your esophagus if you unknowingly drank 190 degree coffee. Spilling some of it on her sweatpants caused that woman to need skin grafts, but if she had actually swallowed it, she would have needed invasive surgery on her esophagus.
It does appear to me that McDonald’s has reduced the temperature of their coffee over the past few years.
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I have experienced this myself. I once had a conference in Boston and took a taxi from the airport. It was like everyone was at war. The taxi driver was yelling in some foreign language and we took off like a rocket as soon as he left the airport. This isn’t uncommon but this situation took it to another level. Everyone drove like mad and cut each other off. It was obvious to me real quick that I wasn’t driving in Missouri anymore. People just ran lights like they were a suggestion to stop. I saw this going on with the police right there and they did nothing. Apparently this is so entrenched that there is no stopping it. Apparently the drivers are aware this goes on because the police were RIGHT THERE!
Then we all went out to eat. It was Halloween night and all us nerdy engineers ended up a a gay restaurant not knowing what we were doing. Everyone else was “dressed up” so that was also an experience and am sure being Halloween, they went all out. I also made a point to walk the whole historical walk through town while I was there which I greatly enjoyed.
As for the people you see here really speeding and driving aggressive, they always seem to have NY, NJ, or MA tags. That is apparently just how they drive and not just because they are in a hurry to drive through “flyover country.”
Yup!
There is a particular intersection near my house where TWICE I have narrowly escaped being T-boned by drivers running the red light. I practice caution at all intersections, but at that intersection I make doubly sure that nobody is barreling along in violation of the red light.
A couple of days ago, some jerk in a VW used the road shoulder to pass me and a few other cars. When that jerk approached the next intersection where there is a traffic light, he proceeded to make a left turn at least 4 seconds after the light had turned red. He was just lucky that he wasn’t T-boned, and–of course–there was no cop around to witness what he had done.
Because the analogy can apply to ANYTHING. Replace “technology services” with “auto repair” and you will hear the same exact stories otherwise. I have done work at plenty of mechanic shops on their computers, etc. and witness the people who come in, call, etc. This at least reminds me that it isn’t just me. Fully 50% of the population seems to want something for nothing. I completely understand why this country is a mess.
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