Do you have a right to call the police?

I know that many here frown on the keeping and especially the carrying of guns for self-defense. Guns are thought by some to exert malevolent supernatural powers over their possessors. Others claim that self-defense is not a right, but an excuse—a pitiful excuse.

There are people, people in very high places, who think it constitutional and proper to require citizens to submit to murder, rape, torture, or whatever a merry band of felons may have planned for you and your family. Here is the learned output of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals of the United States of America:



Ok, defending yourself or your family is wrong, or at least suspect. Having the most efficient means on hand to do so is downright primitive if not criminal.

But while it is bad to have the means to defend yourself and self-defense itself is suspect—an excuse of which one can be legitimately stripped by the state—I always thought it was ok to band together and hire professionals to do the dirty and morally suspect work for you. I always understood that it was OK to flee your own home, or to huddle in terror while you wait for the police to arrival. Even the learned scholars of the Seventh Circuit agree that criminals “should be deterred by the criminal law.” Wouldn’t that include the threatened use of police force?!!

Maybe not. Maybe you don’t even have the right to call the police! This is your brain on gun control and "civilization":


If you can be sued for calling the police today, what does tomorrow hold? Jail terms for locking your doors?!

Your thoughts?

No one is after your guns, your right to defend yourself or your right to call the police and lock your doors.

in their lifetime.

Nor do I see a threat to one defending themselves against violent crime,if needs be.

1 : characterized by or resembling paranoia
2 : characterized by suspiciousness, persecutory trends, or megalomania
3 : extremely fearful

:shrug:

jody is on the verge of putting you on ignore.

It's okay, we're safe here.

jody can't see me. And if you offer one more comment, written in standard English (not using code like "defence of self and others", "we the people" - used as an object of a verb or preposition, "inalienable rights" that "felons", careless folk that they are, somehow manage to "lose") ... well, you'll be invisible too! Or at least well on your way. ;)

so they can't own a gun anyway. And the majority of those who are victims of violent crime know the perpetrator, it's domestic violence, drug related, etc. It isn't reasonable to say all of these incidents would be solved with gun ownership.

Long guns are fine, in most states.

And while you're at it, show where I said anyone was after anything of mine.

There absolutely are people hostile to some of the things you listed (in general). And if you've been reading DU for long, you've read plenty of evidence. I won't speculate on your literacy or critical thinking skills (at least not yet); I would appreciate it if you didn't make personal remarks about me.

There's enough to speculate on in the arguments and citations.

What did the jury decide?

The issue is that the court thought it a tryable case.

Do you think I could sue someone for not curing cancer? For failing to avert a natural disaster? For voting for someone I didn't approve?

Do you think I could sue someone for not curing cancer? For failing to avert a natural disaster? For voting for someone I didn't approve?

How about for failing to warn you that the building you are standing under, which I own, and which I know is about to be hit by a wrecking ball, might hit you when it falls?

But please. Lay out the facts of the instant case and demonstrate how the store management's action (or inaction) they are analogous to any of the fact situations you cite ... and what duty of care someone in each might have owed, and to what person who suffered damages it might have been owed.

If you can do that without providing conclusive proof that you have misrepresented the case in question beyond all credible claim of innocent mistake, I'll give you a lollipop.

(or a psychiatric team), and who feels qualified to diagnose others she has never met based on her own delusions:



You have a lot of nerve.

Hearing voices, indeed.

Fascinating from someone (now or at some time) under the care of a psychiatrist
Posted by TPaine7
(or a psychiatric team)

What delusion are you suffering from?

The only psychiatrist I ever consulted was the one I saw for 50 minutes several days after I was abducted, choked, raped and told to walk into the woods at the bottom of a deserted quarry surrounded by farmland.

He told me I had a rape wish and death wish and must undergo analysis. I told him to go fuck himself, by refusing to pay his account. The leading world expert on sexual offenders with whom I worked at the time, whom I subsequently consulted for his opinion of the psychiatrist's conduct (before dismissing me from his office, he also recounted a vile and violent misogynist "joke"), was of the opinion that the psychiatrist was a quack and the last thing I should do was what he had advised.

So, "under the care of a psychiatrist"?

Nope. Never. Not for two seconds.

But I guess you thought saying that someone had been under the care of a psychiatrist was a good insult, and that in itself says a fair bit. The fact that your claim is false says more.

Have it your semantic way. Regardless, it has much more factual basis than your delusions I quoted in the post. You know, the delusions totally untethered to reality that you're carefully avoiding? I see through you.

:rofl:

And, my crocodile friend, YOU started the mental health jabs--can you remember all the way back to your "point" about me hearing voices? If mental health is a sore spot for you, don't start stuff. Crocodile tears are not impressive.

:nopity:

Being (or having been) cared for by a psychaitrist <sic>, then.

When?

If you consult a lawyer about your drunk driving charge and, after hearing the lawyer's theory of the defence you should present - say, you were drunk - you leave the office, refuse to pay the lawyer's bill for the consultation, do not retain the lawyer, blacklist the lawyer everywhere you can think of (I left that bit out) and do not follow the lawyer's advice, in what sense would you say you were defended by the lawyer?

I guess in about the same sense I would say "TPaine7 is an honest, ethical, upstanding young fellow."


can you remember all the way back to your "point" about me hearing voices?

hahaha.

You answer the question "What did the jury decide?" by saying: "Do you think I could sue someone for not curing cancer? For failing to avert a natural disaster? For voting for someone I didn't approve?"

and you think there's a better explanation?

Well, there is, but I was giving you an easy out, and not suggesting right off the top that you had chosen deceit as your modus operandi.


If mental health is a sore spot for you, don't start stuff.

Okay, I'm getting the hang of this.

If you are the biggest nastiest stupidest liar on the face of the earth, ... uh ... don't eat pickles.


html fixed

Wouldn't the biggest, nastiest, most stupid (not stupidest, that's illiterate) liar be the one who makes up scenarios out of thin air and then diagnoses sane people based on her delusions?

No, it would be the person who has systematically and repeatedly dismantled your sophistries. I can't imagine why.




:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

most stupid (not stupidest, that's illiterate)


First up:

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/stupid

stu·pid (stpd, sty-)
adj. stu·pid·er, stu·pid·est


:wtf:

If it's with old women, maybe you could find one to bother. Maybe she'll have a gun ...

A person is in the care of a doctor even if the medical intervention is completely ineffective.

I never meant to imply that you were a decent patient, that you were cooperative, that you paid your bills, that you got better or that you were civil to whoever tried to help you.

Unless you consider telling a vile, violently misogynist joke to a victim of a vile, violently misogynist crime a medical intervention, I'm afraid you lose.

Let's look at what you said about it, your Sophistry;



So we are to understand that:

• You had an extremely unpleasant and unproductive experience with a psychologist, who didn't intervene medically.
  
• Apparently the entire 50 minute experience consisted of a "violently misogynistic joke." Nothing else that could be considered "a medical intervention" transpired.
  
• During the violently misogynistic joke with no medical value, you learned very valuable information about psychopathology.
  
• The information you learned through a violently misogynistic joke was so valuable that you treasure it still, and use it to diagnose people--over the internet--as psychopaths!
  

This single, violent, misogynistic joke with no medical value qualified you to diagnose over the internet, something experts in psychiatry with years of experience can't do.

And I'm sure you think this story is "obviously credible" (post 49) too, don't you, your Sophistry?

Although, if you did have that, you might at some time have encountered the professions of PSYCHIATRIST and PSYCHOLOGIST and know the difference between them. They are not the same, or even very similar.

Anything you'd like to retract, now?

It won't really help.


You had an extremely unpleasant and unproductive experience with a psychologist, who didn't intervene medically.

I've had a quite pleasant and productive relationship with a PSYCHOLOGIST, for two relatively brief periods since 1990. The first period of a half dozen sessions in 1991 started a few months before, when he had seen the alcoholic/cocaine addict with whom I was involved, at the suggestion of Albert Ellis (yes, the Albert Ellis) that we seek out a local psychologist who practised rational emotive therapy to assist him with his addictions. I met with him instead, at the second appointment, because the addict had wandered off and I was going to have to pay anyhow. That was the occasion of the homily about playing with psychopaths. I got back in touch with him a few months later, some time after I had sent the addict packing back off across the border as he had advised me to do, to get some general life advice. You know, after 15 years in a profession, burnt out, thinking of making changes, dealing with change ... welll, you wouldn't know, but you can take my word.

He did resemble Dr. Freud rather amazingly, but he didn't, ever, intervene medically. That would be because he has a Ph.D. in clinical psychology, which does not qualify him to intervene medically, and so if he had, he would have been guilty of numerous professional offences. He can't even write prescriptions. In the first instance, in 1991, we never even discussed my previous traumas. I saw him again for a few sessions a few years ago when I was dealing with a fresh and devastating trauma, and the compound effects.


During the violently misogynistic joke with no medical value, you learned very valuable information about psychopathology.

The PSYCHIATRIST with whom I spent 55 minutes in the summer of 1974 -- 50 minutes consisting of me recounting part of my experience several days before, and 5 minutes consisting of him listening to the sound of his own voice -- informed me that I had a rape wish and death wish and told me a joke that involved a woman being chased around a room by a man with a knife who stopped and asked the man with the knife whether he couldn't make it a knife and an erection and then advised me to see him the next week so that we could start me on "analysis".

I learned nothing about anything, except that he was a pig unfit to experiment on rodents, and you can't always trust chains of referrals even though each link in the chain seems sound. Oh, and that I did not have a rape wish or death wish. Having somebody tell you that you do can focus the mind wonderfully. It did take me until the next day, and that chat with the genuine expert I worked with, to get past the idea, though.


The information you learned through a violently misogynistic joke was so valuable that you treasure it still, and use it to diagnose people--over the internet--as psychopaths!

Here, the ignorant idiocy of your words really needs no further pointing out.

As far as "diagnosing", I believe I expressed the opinion that George Sodini likely had a personality disorder within the spectrum of narcissistic / antisocial / psychopathic personality disorders, and found that expert opinion of him and of those disorders supported mine.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09218/989033-455.stm , just for one.

Now, do I find symptoms of those kinds of perosnality disorders among posters on this board? You bet I do. You quoted one instance.

Those disorders are not "mental illnesses". They are not within the exclusive realm of medical practitioners to "diagnose"; they are not delusional, and are not treated by medication unless there is accompanying depression or anxiety, for instance. Suggesting that someone shows symptoms of a personality disorder is in no way equivalent to calling someone mentally ill. Just in case you were wondering.


Oh, and what meaning your obscure reference to post 49 is supposed to convey, I wouldn't know.

That's okay. You've done quite a fine enough hatchet job on yourself here already.




typo fixed

I did conflate psychologist and psychiatrist, and it appears you were consistent. It appears your story is at least possibly true.

OK--human error on my part.

You made up a history for me out of whole cloth, iverglas, the entire thing is delusional from start to finish. I never said anything remotely like your delusions, and nothing like that has ever happened to me.

This is the difference between class and you, iverglas. Class admits mistakes; you stand by blatant, wholesale, invented falsehoods.

I can't RETELL my own story; I've never TOLD any remotely comparable story--ever.

You are contemptible, dishonest, delusional, and classless. Why don't you show any basis you imagine you have for your delusions? Aren't you the expert google mistress? It doesn't exist, and you know it.

Is your failure to substantiate anything about your fabrication an admission that you are a pathetic liar without the morals to admit it?



In your "expert" opinion, what would the symptom of making up lies about someone and tossing out mental health terminology about their imaginary condition say about the person who did it?

You need a remedial kindergarten that specializes in morality.

Here are the facts of the case as emphasized by an incompetent and immoral "authority" whose word you should take (post 20):

1. The opening of the safe caused an alarm to sound at the Kansas City police department, but not at the store.
   
2. The negligence alleged is thus the action taken once the holdup was in progress. The allegations are directed particularly to the silent alarm attached to the store safe.
   
3. The employees were warned particularly not to give any verbal alarm in the street because this would greatly increase the probability of injury. Thus the plaintiff asserts that the triggering of the silent alarm was not in accordance with the instructions given employees, was not a prudent act, and did not show an exercise of due care for the safety of the customers.
   
4. The same theory is advanced by the plaintiff in his complaint, that is, that the danger to customers and employees of the store during the course of the robbery was apparent, and that the wrong action was taken — action which served to increase the hazard and which in fact caused the injury. Under this theory of the case, the granting of summary judgment was error.
   

Basically,

1. The police were silently called when the safe was opened.
   
2. The negligence was allegedly calling the police silently when the alarm was opened.
   
3. The employees were warned particularly not to give any VERBAL ALARM IN THE STREET because this would greatly increase the probability of injury. Thus the plaintiff asserts that the triggering of the silent alarm was not in accordance with the instructions given employees, was not a prudent act, and did not show an exercise of due care for the safety of the customers.
   
4. The same theory is advanced by the plaintiff in his complaint, that is, that the danger to customers and employees of the store during the course of the robbery was apparent, and that the wrong action was taken — action which served to increase the hazard and which in fact caused the injury. Under this theory of the case, the granting of summary judgment was error.
   

The client is asserting that SILENTLY CALLING THE POLICE violated the policy against GIVING VERBAL ALARM IN THE STREET, and that the STORE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ACTIONS OF THE STATE (police are state actors).



Isn't it obvious, even to those with law degrees, that the situations are analogous? The store owner is no more responsible for the actions of the state than he is for natural disasters. The police shot the victim. The store only informed the state SILENTLY of the robbery.

Keep your lollipop, old woman.

in DESHANEY v. WINNEBAGO CTY. SOC. SERVS. DEPT., 489 U.S. 189 (1989)

than he has made in the last several years, he surprises you!


How can there be a "right" to call the police when police are not obligated to respond?

Huh, jody. How could anyone ask such a completely and hopelessly stupid question?


I have a right to say "hey jody!" if I see you on the street, even though you don't have a duty to respond.

You've heard of your Bill of Rights? You know ... ALL OF IT?

Check out that First Amendment Part.

The SCOTUS' ruling in Warren, Shaney and Gonzales didn't find that you have no right to call the cops.

You just don't have the right to expect them to show up.

State to provide members of the general public with adequate protective services"?

What do you thing SCOTUS meant other than what it said?

The SCOTUS has never said you don't have the right to call the cops.

The Court has said, on several occasions, that you don't have the right to have the cops actually show up if you call them.

:hi:

... he does yet again.

In the rudest manner possible, of course.

In the most non-credible manner possible.

And even then, hardly ever.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=118&topic_id=176965&mesg_id=177543

(and my reply; and there's more in that thread)

Is jody a friend of people of, uh, your, uh, ethnicity everywhere?

Strange friends you got.

Does jody admit it when he is wrong?

Not hardly.

Does jody have class?

:rofl:



I have a different recollection of events from what you have. You, my friend, really are not in a position to get all righteously indignant about anything I have said. If you choose to clarify the events recounted by you (as I recall, in a discussion early in your career possibly relating to gun militants on campus), feel free.

I never, on this site or anywhere else, reported anything like what you claim happened to me. That's because it never did happen.

What you "recall" is irrelevant; it has no basis in reality. You are either deluded or lying. There's nothing to clarify; I never recounted events remotely similar to your "recollection."

And, no reflection on jody, but almost anyone has class if you are the standard of comparison.

I quoted sources.

Point out the strawmen, please.

Feel free to just say "misleading". That one's accurate.

don't know that posters have made these very points in recent posts.

Someone just yesterday or the day before claimed that guns exerted influence over their possessors like the ring did over Gollum. And some ignorant blowhard--I think it was you--claimed boldly that self-defense was an "excuse," "not a right." "Duh." You love to condescend up, don't you?

So it probably does appear that I made strawman arguments.

You know better, but it's good to have other people, innocently ignorant, to back up your desperate and determined intentional ignorance, isn't it, your Sophistry?

And some ignorant blowhard--I think it was you--claimed boldly that self-defense was an "excuse," "not a right." "Duh." You love to condescend up, don't you?

Actually, I'm very fond of using correct terminology to convey and discuss real concepts accurately.

If you had a law degree, you would know that is exactly what I did there.

Since you don't and/or since you are driven solely by the need to advance the gun militant agenda, you think / pretend to think that I did something different.

You do have access to an internet search engine, right?

And some ignorant blowhard--I think it was you--claimed boldly that self-defense was an "excuse," "not a right." "Duh."

You can find reality all over the net, but I particularly liked this succinct summary.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_self-defense

Note the title of the wiki article: "Right of self-defense". (The spelling, "defense", indicates that this is a US-centred article.) Not yer best wiki article --

The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwide view of the subject.
This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources

-- but even it has got this bit right:

This article and defense of property deal with the legal concept of excused (sometimes termed "justified") acts that might otherwise be illegal.

We do all understand this, right? Assault (up to and including homicide) would OTHERWISE BE ILLEGAL if there were no excuse or justification for it.


You love to condescend up, don't you?

To ignorant blowhards?

Yeeaaaahh.

I forgot sophist, iverglas.

A thousand pardons.

If there's the slightest chance to obfuscate, you will. All nine justices of the Supreme Court said that self-defense IS A RIGHT. YOU, ignorant blowhard, said that self-defense IS NOT A RIGHT.

It's all nine justices (as demonstrated here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=118&topic_id=241213&mesg_id=241213) vs iverglas.

Spin that, your Sophistry.

My thought is that you don't have a law degree and you don't know how to read the decisions of a Circuit Court of Appeals, starting with the phrase "Our hypothetical" (referring to the previous paragraph).

As for the second appellate court reversal of a summary judgment... again, you don't understand what happened here and are obviously trying to make it appear as something other than it is. You can sue for anything you want, and what the appellate court said was to let a jury decide the facts of the case. That's all it said.

You are making mountains out of less than molehills.

It's a small mind indeed that thinks the validity of a point depends on the degree of the person making it.

The Circuit of Appeals' hypothetical means that they think it is permissible for a state to forbid lethal self-defense.

But since you probably have a law degree, with which you're very impressed, here it is from law professor:



He teaches law at UCLA and has been cited by the Supreme Court. Where do you teach? Have you ever been cited by the Supreme Court?



Really? If I sued you for not preventing a natural disaster, would my case go to a jury? Should it?

It's stupid on it's face to have a trial over whether one can call the police when being robbed, though I can see why a lawyer might disagree.

that pretends that another person said something like what you are alleging the poster said.

Oh wait. Is that what you were doing? Or were you just making a general comment, like "nice weather we're having today"?


It's a small mind indeed that thinks the validity of a point depends on the degree of the person making it.

Who thinks that, tit-T?

Supplementary question: do you want the person analysing the law relating to the proceedings to which you are a party to have studied law? Or would you prefer that they just made it up as they went along, and pretended that the caselaw means something it doesn't, and hope the court doesn't notice?


I've established pretty easily that you completely misrepresented the facts and the appellate judgment in the alarm case.

I think lapfog_1 (who is, as I recall from elsewhere, qualified for this purpose) has disposed of the rest of it pretty handily.

But hell. Maybe someone even more ignorant than yourself (if that is actually your excuse) will be fooled. Or at least baffled by the gab into thinking there must be something there ... smoke, fire, bad bad courts, and all that.



typo fixed

I don't see it. The case was about calling, summoning, or requesting the police to come. The alarm was simply the fancy electronic means.

And you and I both know that I've repeatedly demolished your "legal" sophistries on this site. But it's interesting to see you're still very impressed with yourself.

The case was about calling, summoning, or requesting the police to come.

Yes. And that revolution thing of yours was about tea.

You offend me. You are offensive. Your words offend truth and decency. You offend decent people.

You offend decent people.

Do you actually know decent people? And do they actually talk to you?

There are saints!

So, how many, stray? Frankly, from what I've seen of protests over police shootings of armed thugs, those who think the police are evil are well-represented in thug and thug-enabling "communities."

that relates somehow to its title ... but I'm not the one going to be shovelling out that stable to find it.

If you find yourself reading this thread by following a link from the "Latest" page or some such, take note.

You have arrived in the Guns forum. If you remain here long, you are at risk of a severely bruised forehead, whether from smacking it repeatedly from what you see here, to try to clear your vision, or from banging it on a wall to punish yourself for trying to make sense of the senseless.

You may wish to click on the "Guns" link up above, and spend a bit of time getting your bearings in this strange and unfamiliar place. Just as you might wonder, if you suddenly found yourself in, say, the Gobi Desert, whether you were still on your home planet, you may wonder, having found yourself here, whether you are still at DemocraticUnderground.

Well, yes, you are. Earth has its Gobi Desert



and DemocraticUnderground has its Guns forum



http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/2007/12/ohio-gun-nuts-picketing-apple-stores.html

You may just want to leave. ;)

One definitely needs a sense of humor (and a strong stomach) to browse in this den of logic, and Constitutional wisdom...;-)

The gag reflex can easily be assuaged, much of the time, just by having a sip of something fizzy as you click the next link. As the fizzy drink comes out your nose, your tummy will forget it was starting to get queasy.

A tip, though: you should be sure to break up Master T's posts by clicking on something else in between, or the queasiness may be less easy to quell.

or get sucked into the bizzarro world that iverglas lives in. Be afraid, be very afraid.....

It may be that by discreetly advising store patrons to leave the store, upon realizing that the safe was possibly being opened by unauthorized persons, the store management would have exacerbated the danger to the patrons. I should think that all patrons could have been cleared from the premises in the time it took police to arrive.

I'm failing to see how advising patrons to leave the store would have put them at greater risk than allowing them to remain in the store and possibly be caught in crossfire.

Hmm, maybe the store management was not aware that the silent alarm had gone off?

Hmm, maybe that was the crux of the negligence alleged?

Maybe if you would link to the actual appellate court decision, instead of to some burble on a website I prefer not to visit and had to find by googling anyway because you didn't actually link to it, we would have actual substance for a discussion?

Never as much fun as speculating, facts, but there they are. Found at the icky Volokh's site, for lack of sufficient info to find them anywhere else:

http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_08_09-2009_08_15.shtml#1250205811
(the material does not appear to be original to Volokh; emphases mine)

Why do you neighbour folk say "decedent" for someone who is obviously dead, not dying? Deceased. Just didn't get anough Latin in school, I guess.

The case -- Kelly v. Kroger Co., 484 F.2d 1362 (10th Cir. 1973) -- is from the 1970s, ...

<D>ecedent was a customer in defendant’s store in Kansas City, Kansas, when a holdup took place. The robbers entered the front of the store with guns, took money from the checkout stands, and then ordered the store manager to open the safe in his office. The opening of the safe caused an alarm to sound at the Kansas City police department, but not at the store.

Several police officers responded immediately to their alarm, and when they entered the front door, the robber ran to the rear part of the store. The police fired a shot at one of the robbers at this time in the store. The decedent was in the rear of the store, and a robber seized her as a hostage or a shield. As the robber left the store at the front, he forced her with him up the street a block or so as he attempted to escape. The police followed and the robber then shot and killed the decedent. The police then shot at the robber as he ran some distance, and captured him.

The attempted robbery took place about 1:30 in the afternoon. During the course of the robbery, the store employees did not sound any other alarm nor attempt to direct or assist the police. This store had been robbed about a month before. Some fourteen robberies of grocery stores in the northeastern part of the city, where the store here concerned is located, had taken place in the prior eighteen-month period. An armed guard had been stationed in this store from time to time.

The complaint is based on the theory that the defendant was negligent in store procedure it had adopted to be followed during the course of such a robbery. The negligence alleged is thus the action taken once the holdup was in progress. The allegations are directed particularly to the silent alarm attached to the store safe.

... The trial court, in granting summary judgment for the defendant, held in effect that no negligence was stated in the allegations, and even had there been it could not have been the proximate cause of the injury because the consequences could not reasonably have been foreseen.

The standard of care owed to business invitees is ... one of “due care to keep the premises reasonably safe” for their use, but the proprietor is not an insurer of their safety.... The defendant had issued a pamphlet to its employees telling them what to do in the event of a holdup. The particular emphasis in the pamphlet was to do nothing to excite or startle the robbers. It stated in part that many robberies are by young persons who might start shooting if something unexpected should happen. The employees were warned particularly not to give any verbal alarm in the street because this would greatly increase the probability of injury. Thus the plaintiff asserts that the triggering of the silent alarm was not in accordance with the instructions given employees, was not a prudent act, and did not show an exercise of due care for the safety of the customers.

... is perhaps an aspect of “foreseeability,” not so much that a particular incident may occur, but once one is in progress, when the danger to the customer is evident. Thus under this standard if there is an opportunity to comprehend the danger, negligence can then become a jury question. ... The same theory is advanced by the plaintiff in his complaint, that is, that the danger to customers and employees of the store during the course of the robbery was apparent, and that the wrong action was taken — action which served to increase the hazard and which in fact caused the injury. Under this theory of the case, the granting of summary judgment was error.

The law is just such a tricky business, isn't it?

As was your depiction of the events and issues in this case, tit-T.

You really don't understand a word of this, do you?

I could be wrong. Point it out, and I'll admit it (if I see it).

If I got a law degree, would I become as ignorant as you?

Would I think the abolitionists wanted to deny black people all their rights?
Would I think "bear arms" means necessarily in an organized group?
Would I think the dictionary outranks the Constitution but local laws get to define their own terms and thus outrank the dictionary?
Would I think self-defense was an excuse and not a right as the Supreme Court (all nine justices) assert and as the Court has always asserted?
Would I start having delusions and diagnosing sane people based on my delusions?



In short, do law degrees make people delusional fools?

The whole "mere rape" is like pinching one.

Where can we find this "mere rape" you have in quotation marks, and whom are you quoting?

Here. You seem to be someone who needs it.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=118&topic_id=247317&mesg_id=247656

Either that, or:

http://www.thestar.com/comment/columnists/94596

Submit your ethics question, and maybe Ken will answer it in print. I offer you this model, handily written in the first person for you:

Dear Ken:
Recently, I have succumbed to the temptation of taking a person's words and twisting them to make it appear that the person said something they didn't, in order to persuade others that what I am saying about that person is a true representation of that person's statements, and thus of their values and beliefs. If others believe that what I say is indeed a true representation, they will surely agree that the person is such an appalling excuse for a human being that everything they say should be disregarded, and in fact they should probably be tarred and feathered. Okay, I have to admit, I have gone so far as inventing statements and pretending the person said them. I do this because I am driven by an irresistible urge to advance my political agenda by any means necessary, and, I fear, I simply have no conscience. Do you think you can help me, or should I seek help of a different nature?

There's even an email address where you can send it, no postage required.

"Mere rape" is my description of her position; rape is like pinching is her formulation.

She is offended because "mere rape" is the real problem, not the analogy between rape and pinching.

:rofl:

instead of quotation marks, when it would be a lie to put it in quotation marks followed by "is her formulation", does that mean it is not a lie?

I don't think so. But you may have been reared, er, differently.


You had not a word say in the recent discussion of my experience as a victim of abduction, choking and rape, and the bald assertions made by one of your colleagues that I was lying. Kind of interesting how you avoided it. One would have thought it was your perfect opening, the perfect opportunity to claim that I think that rape and pinching are analogous, and state whatver conclusion you might like to draw about my truthfulness and the truth of my account.

Was there a teeny tiny voice of conscience somewhere buried under all the shit with which you fill your head and your mouth, telling you that you really could not in all conscience assert that an obviously credible narrative such as mine was a lie?

But if so, it seems the little voice just wasn't anywhere near healthy enough to persuade you that maybe even tolerating someone calling a victim of such offences a liar isn't ... what's that word now? ... moral.


Here's your chance. Was I lying?

I you are not willing to say that I was, what is your explanation for me saying or thinking what you insinuate I say and think about sexual assault? You must have one. You must have a basis for saying that I believe that rape and pinching are analogous. If you believe that I believe that (of course, you don't actually need to believe it in order to say it), you must have some basis for believing it. Any explanation cannot possibly involve me having a single brain cell or a single conscience atom. What is it?

YOU compared rape and pinching. My opinion has nothing to do with it.

If YOU don't like what YOU said, have a long talk with IVERGLAS.

Wow!

Do I care?!!!*

Have you ever stopped to think that I'm not here to discuss iverglas' personal history? Or iverglas' fake history? Or fake iverglas' history? Or whatever? Hell, I'm not even here to discuss my history.

And assuming I actually cared, why would I trust someone who thinks she knows my race better than I do?



It may be true and it may be false, but there is certainly nothing "obviously credible" about anything you say. Anything whatsoever.

And it's pathetic to repeatedly invite people to violate the rules. It would be against the rules for me to say you lied. The truth is I don't think you lied, and I don't think you told the truth. I haven't thought enough about it to form an opinion. The world doesn't actually revolve around you, narcissist.

*(Not that I don't care about any woman's rape, but I haven't spent a fraction of a second agonizing over whether or not you lied, or enhanced your story or the like. I think I skimmed that thread once--rape is an unpleasant thing.)

but I chalked that one up to gross stupidity and lack of morals. I guess it does have legal ramifications too.

Starting from the "question" in the subject line, which was not the issue in the case cited.

Nice of Master T to pretend it was, though, eh?

There's story after story about people who defended themselves from criminals breaking into their homes, only to get arrested and jailed (for long terms) while the criminals get played up in the media as fun-loving kids.

I'll bet, given how many there are, you can tell us about one. Maybe even two.

Will you start with poor Tony Martin?

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you have been around this forum long enough to have seen many other news articles. I am willing to believe that you don't remember any of them, should you chose such a claim; but to deny that any such stories exist just makes you look foolish.

the old "do your own search" ploy.

You make the claim, you prove it. From anywhere on the net you like, not just this forum.

I was trying to find the one discussed in this forum about the guy who used a sword to "defend" himself, as I recall it went. Turned out he was "defending" himself against someone running away from him down stairs. As I recall it went.

No others coming to mind. But you must have some in mind. Should be easy enough to offer at least a brief description, I'd think.

Remembering the individual stories is nothing I find useful, so I don't try. I just read them, discuss them, add them to the tally, and move on. If the details are needed, they can be found by searching here or elsewhere.

"Tony"?

What an odd way to refer to a convicted killer / violent bigot on the other side of the ocean whom, I would certainly think, you have never met. Of course, it is how all his fans referred to him throughout the whole sad and sorry tale.

You a fan?

I figured everyone would get the reference from just a few messages up, and figured that Mr. Martin would not mind since he will probably not see the post.

To answer the question, no, I am not a fan.

and I can't for the life of me think why anyone would object to the story being told here. Huh.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/farmer-accused-of-killing-burglar-vowed-to-shoot-thieves-or-gypsies-721195.html

Farmer accused of killing burglar 'vowed to shoot thieves or gypsies'

Tuesday, 11 April 2000

In the months before he killed a teenage burglar, farmer Tony Martin had repeatedly threatened to shoot any thieves or "gypsies".

The 55-year-old, who had booby-trapped his dilapidatedhome in anticipation of a break in, displayed "vitriolic" hatred towards criminals. "He talked of putting gypsies in one of his fields, surrounded by barbed wire, and machine-gunning them," Rosamund Horwood-Smart QC, for the prosecution, told the Norwich Crown Court jury at the opening of the murder trial yesterday.

On the night 16-year-old Fred Barras and his friend Brendon Fearon, 26, both of Newark, Nottinghamshire, broke into the house, Mr Martin took a pump action shotgun and fired several times at them.

The teenager's last words, after being fatally wounded in the back, were for his mother. "He has got me. I am sorry. Please don't. Mum," he said before climbing out of a window. It was not until the following afternoon - on 21 August last year - that his body was found in nearby undergrowth.

Of course, I again hasten to point out that I am not here to solicit sympathy for teenaged petty thieves shot in the back by homicidal bigots.

The large "Tony" fan club around the world sure had a lot for him, though.


I haven't yet remembered the exact details of another case that was discussed here, but as I recall, it involved someone striking someone else with a sword in "self-defence" ... as the person he struck was running away down stairs.

The point remains, of course.

S/he who asserts has the burden of proving.

If individuals are being convicted of crimes left, right and centre in the UK for engaging in legitimate self-defence, I want to know about it. But no one will tell me ...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1212680/Millionaire-faces-jail-attack-knife-raider-home.html

Upstanding citizen convicted for defending his family from career criminal, just as I described, in today's news.

And of course the actual criminal is given material support by this topsy-turvy system:

"In a further twist, legal sources said Mr Salem would be eligible for criminal injury compensation - with a fractured skull worth around £6,000 - even though he recovered to commit further crimes."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/farmer-accused-of-killing-burglar-vowed-to-shoot-thieves-or-gypsies-721195.html

Farmer accused of killing burglar 'vowed to shoot thieves or gypsies

Tuesday, 11 April 2000

In the months before he killed a teenage burglar, farmer Tony Martin had repeatedly threatened to shoot any thieves or "gypsies".

The 55-year-old, who had booby-trapped his dilapidatedhome in anticipation of a break in, displayed "vitriolic" hatred towards criminals. "He talked of putting gypsies in one of his fields, surrounded by barbed wire, and machine-gunning them," Rosamund Horwood-Smart QC, for the prosecution, told the Norwich Crown Court jury at the opening of the murder trial yesterday.

On the night 16-year-old Fred Barras and his friend Brendon Fearon, 26, both of Newark, Nottinghamshire, broke into the house, Mr Martin took a pump action shotgun and fired several times at them.

The teenager's last words, after being fatally wounded in the back, were for his mother. "He has got me. I am sorry. Please don't. Mum," he said before climbing out of a window. It was not until the following afternoon - on 21 August last year - that his body was found in nearby undergrowth.

Now dog forbid anyone should think any sympathy is being sought for kids shot in the back. So I hasten to assure the viewing audience: not moi, doing that.

Tony has quite the fan club. The actions of this violent bigot have been lauded far and wide, including here in this very forum.

And there have been others ...

Another dyslexic atheist. I don't believe in my doG either.

where you can. ;)

Loads to be had here. TP's legal analyses really are the stuff that legal humour websites are made of!

Dawg.

Someone who hasn't seen me mop the floor with your sophistries and your legal pretensions? Someone who doesn't know the history behind post 27?

They'll soon see the truth, too.

with the occasional spot of better luck than he had.

So it wasn't just us, bill & co.

Tim01 didn't understand a word of it either!!

You're reading a little too much into it there. The 7th's opinion didn't say that self-defense was wrong, it said that it could hypothetically be rendered illegal.

I'm not a lawyer, but I am a political science major, which qualifies me to some extent to point out when the lawyers are failing to look beyond their own noses. Anyone who's passed PolSci 101 should be able to tell that authority is the legitimate exercise of power, and for that exercise to be legitimate, the power must be coupled with responsibility.

Now, the physical safety of its citizens is the first and foremost reason for the existence of the state in the first place. That's the whole point of the "social contract" (per Locke and Rousseau). So if the state chooses to criminalize the act of self-defense, it must accept the responsibility for the physical safety of those same citizens. If the state refuses to be held accountable if it fails to do so (as the United States has already repeatedly done; see Warren v. District of Columbia, DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services and Castle Rock, CO v. Gonzales) and punishes citizens for defending themselves, we have a state that has no legitimate reason to exist.

There's also this:



This I absolutely agree with:



That would remove the "necessary" from my namesake's "necessary evil."

:thumbsup: :hi:

jody makes the biggest possible idiot of himself in public.

I say you're correct.

So if the state chooses to criminalize the act of self-defense, it must accept the responsibility for the physical safety of those same citizens.

If the state denies an individual the opportunity to raise self-defence against a charge of assault (up to and including homicide), i.e. requires that an individual submit to assault (up to and including homicide) at the hands of another individual on pain of punishment, the state is violating the individual's right not to be deprived of life without due process. Requiring that an individual submit to assault (up to and including homicide) on pain of punishment for using violence to defend against the assault is very clearly a violation of that fundamental right.

The issue in the jewelry store was the EFFECTS of what the management did, i.e. calling the police, failing to take certain actions after calling the police, or both.

The store had a policy against employees raising a noticeable alarm, because it was aware of the danger to customers that might ensue if criminals in the store were startled.

They took an action that they knew or ought to have known was likely to create a danger to customers in the store: they sent an alarm designed to cause the police to arrive suddenly and unannounced in the store.

They failed to take any action to mitigate the danger that they knew or ought to have known was a likely outcome of their action: they did not advise customers to leave the store to avoid the danger that was likely to result from the call to the police.

The particular emphasis in the pamphlet was to do nothing to excite or startle the robbers. It stated in part that many robberies are by young persons who might start shooting if something unexpected should happen.

Thus the plaintiff asserts that the triggering of the silent alarm was not in accordance with the instructions given employees, was not a prudent act, and did not show an exercise of due care for the safety of the customers.

... “foreseeability,” not so much that a particular incident may occur, but once one is in progress, when the danger to the customer is evident. Thus under this standard if there is an opportunity to comprehend the danger, negligence can then become a jury question.

The same theory is advanced by the plaintiff in his complaint, that is, that the danger to customers and employees of the store during the course of the robbery was apparent, and that the wrong action was taken — action which served to increase the hazard and which in fact caused the injury.

The issue was not whether calling the police, or calling the police silently, was "wrong", in any sense other than "incorrect", let alone whether anyone has a right to do that.

The issue was whether, by calling the police silently and/or doing nothing avert the danger to the customers that the store management knew or ought to have known would result from that, the store breached its civil duty of care to the customers, by creating that danger or failing to mitigate the danger.

The case has absolutely, precisely bugger all to do with any "right to call the police".

The fact that someone has a right to do something DOES NOT MEAN that they are not civilly liable for the harm to third parties that results from what they do or from their failure to mitigate the effects of what they do.


There is a reason why people who have not passed the bar are not permitted to charge money for legal opinions. A very good reason.

are up to the police.

They can sit on their butts in the station. They can drive up sirens blaring. They can come in plainclothes and try to blend in with the customers. It's all up to the police!

This is roughly analogous to my seeing a foreign force attempting to land on the beach, calling the local base, and then being sued over civilian casualties RESULTING FROM THE ARMY'S ACTIONS.

This is preposterous on its face. Basically, I am liable because I called the ARMY!

That is directly comparable to my being responsible for a natural disaster. I have as much control over the Army as I do over natural disasters.



I don't claim legal expertise. I don't give legal advice; I certainly don't charge for legal advice. I have some legal knowledge, having read original sources and law professors who--unlike you--actually know what they're talking about most of the time. And I know enough to see through your sophistries--legal and otherwise.

It is obviously in the interest of lawyers to work in a system where, as one poster put it "anyone can sue anyone over anything" (paraphrase). There is a reason lawyers (and politicians) are held in near-universal contempt.

It should be obvious that the effects of calling the police
are up to the police.

... knows that individuals and corporations will usually be CIVILLY LIABLE for the REASONABLY FORESEEABLE CONSEQUENCES of THEIR OWN ACTIONS if those actions were part of the CAUSAL CHAIN for the HARM suffered by A THIRD PARTY, IF their action/inaction breached a duty of care they owed to a third party.


This is roughly analogous to my seeing a foreign force attempting to land on the beach, calling the local base, and then being sued over civilian casualties RESULTING FROM THE ARMY'S ACTIONS.

Do you have any idea what NEGLIGENCE is in civil law? What a DUTY OF CARE is?

Anyone wanting to sue you for the harmful consequences of you calling the army would have to prove that you owed them a duty of care, and you breached it.

One would think that if you wanted to yammer on about the law to the extent you apparently do, you would INFORM YOURSELF about your subject.


This is preposterous on its face. Basically, I am liable because I called the ARMY!

Yeah, it is. Mind you, if there were anyone in the vicinity to whom you did owe a duty of care of some sort, you might find yourself liable for the damages that resulted from your BREACH of that duty.

You can keep on spewing this nonsense if you like, and you can spew it to your heart's content.

I have already explained that what you are saying is FALSE, and is NOT WHAT WAS SAID in the appellant court decision you attempted to interpret.


In the case that YOU chose to present in this thread, the store management DID owe the customers a duty of care. It is up to the trier of fact to determine whether a duty of care has been breached, and what damages the party who breached it is liable for.


I don't claim legal expertise. I don't give legal advice; I certainly don't charge for legal advice.

And I didn't say anything about legal advice. I referred to LEGAL OPINIONS, and what a good thing it is that non-legal professionals may not charge for them.

Do you have any idea what NEGLIGENCE is in civil law? What a DUTY OF CARE is?

Not really. Nor does it matter to my argument.

Do you understand the chemistry of date rape drugs and the intricacies of how they work on a person's body? Does that mean you are not entitled to an opinion on date rape using such drugs? Basic morality is NEVER a function of technical details.

Whatever the chemical terms or the medical technicalities, it is wrong to use date rape drugs to take advantage of a person--sexually or otherwise.

Whatever the legal terms or the lawyerly technicalities, it is wrong to use legal BS to charge an entity for calling the police.

One would think that if you wanted to yammer on about the law to the extent you apparently do, you would INFORM YOURSELF about your subject.

I am not yammering about the law, I am talking about the injustice of the law (as applied or allegedly applied in this case). If I did inform myself about the technicalities, I am sure I would be pointing out holes in your technical arguments.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:


Basic morality is NEVER a function of technical details.

The question of whether someone OWES A DUTY OF CARE TO SOMEONE ELSE
and the question of whether someone has BREACHED A DUTY OF CARE TO SOMEONE ELSE
and the question of whether someone is therefore LIABLE TO THE PERSON to whom they owed a duty of care for the HARM THAT RESULTED when they breached their duty of care

-- they really really ARE questions of BASIC MORALITY.

And the answers to those questions have been adopted as LEGAL RULES.

You put someone in harms' way when you have a DUTY not to do so, and they are harmed, then YOU PAY.

You do NOT walk away scot free and not out a dime. What the fuck would be "moral" about THAT?

And all of this is reality in our universe whether you choose to live here with us or not.


I am not yammering about the law, I am talking about the injustice of the law (as applied or allegedly applied in this case).

No, you are not. You are repeatedly, over and over and over, SAYING SOMETHING THAT IS NOT TRUE.

If you are doing that out of ignorance of your subject, that ignorance has long since become wilful.

Law and basic morality are distant cousins at best--mortal enemies at worst.



Do tell, iverglas, is this type of scenario legal? Is it moral?

Joe Blow breaks into the Smith's house to rob, kill or rape. On his way to commit the crime, he slips and falls on a skate the child left in the hallway. Joe injures his back and is unable to support himself (or his drug habit). He sues the Smith family for vast amounts of money--and wins!

I could understand Joe suing if he were a fireman acting in his official capacity. But, IMO, criminals should assume 100% of the risk associated with their felonies.

Law and basic morality are not synonyms, not even close.

********

Oh, and if I am ignorant it's not willful. I haven't been corrected by any credible authority. (Even you should see why I wouldn't take your word seriously.) The Canadian Supreme Court as quoted below is irrelevant, as even you should know by now.

Oh, and if I am ignorant it's not willful. I haven't been corrected by any credible authority. (Even you should see why I wouldn't take your word seriously.) The Canadian Supreme Court as quoted below is irrelevant, as even you should know by now.

(a) You haven't asked any credible authority; making moronic statements and requiring that someone authoritative who isn't present refute them ... well, it doesn't enhance your credibility in any regard.

(b) The principles of civil liability vary in their details from one jurisdiction to another (e.g. as to what duty of care is owed to whom); those details are irrelevant to identifying the issue in the case you chose to misrepresent, which is about exactly the same issues as that case: what the duty of care was, to whom it was owed, whether it was breached, what liability resulted. The fact that you deny this is no more than further evidence of your own wilful and very woeful ignorance of the subject you chose to introduce and babble nonsense about.

I am talking about the law being unfair. I admit it may be possible (theoretically at least) that you interpret the law correctly. If so, the law is an ass, just as it is in the scenario above.

If we were talking about the Fugitive Slave Act, you would be saying that there was a duty to return slaves and citing legal precedent and I would be saying that the law was wrong. The slaves didn't have law degrees, they were still right as were those who helped them. The law can be wrong.

This was on the curriculum of my first year torts class.

http://csc.lexum.umontreal.ca/en/1971/1972rcs0-441/1972rcs0-441.html

I have replaced the initials used in the headnote with the various parties' surnames, for easier comprehension, and added emphases.

Supreme Court of Canada

Horsley v. MacLaren <1972> S.C.R. 441

Astrid Horsley and Richard J. Horsley, Lawrence A. Horsley, Michael A. Horsley, all infants by their next friend
Thomas Robertson (Plaintiffs) Appellants;

and

Kenneth W. MacLaren and the ship "Ogopogo", and Richard J. Jones (Defendants) Respondents.


Matthews, an invited guest on a cabin cruiser, which was owned and was being operated by the respondent MacLaren, accidentally fell overboard. In the course of rescue operations, another invited guest, Horsley, dived into the water to help him. The effort was without avail. The rescuer was pulled from the water by others on board, could not be resuscitated and was later pro­nounced dead. The body of the rescuee was never recovered.

MacLaren was first alerted to Matthews's fall when the body was only about a boat-length and half behind him. Instead of following the recommended method of effecting a rescue, i.e., to circle and bring the boat bow on towards the body, he reversed, after putting the engines momentarily in neutral, and backed up to within four or five feet of the body, where he shut off the engines. Matthews, who had been in the water for approximately two minutes, was apparently uncon­scious and attempts to rescue him with a pike pole and a life-belt were unsuccessful.

The boat having begun to drift away, MacLaren restarted the engines and again backed towards Matthews. Three or four minutes had now passed since the fall overboard, and it was then that Horseley dived into the water from the stern, coming up about ten feet from Matthews. The latter was seen to fall forward, face and head in the water, and another passenger, Jones, jumped in, one foot away, to hold up his head but Matthews disappeared beneath the boat. Jones's husband grabbed the boat controls which MacLaren yielded, swung the boat around bow on, and ap­proached Jones on the starboard side where she was pulled in. MacLaren then resumed control and went forward towards Horsley who was then also pulled in but in unconscious condition. Attempts at resuscitation failed. Medical evidence established that Horsley died from shock sustained on contact with the icy water.

Two fatal accident actions were brought against MacLaren for the benefit of the widows and dependants of the two deceased. Horsley's family succeeded at the trial but their claim was dismissed on appeal, and they then sought restoration by this Court of the favourable trial judgment. The other claim failed at trial and was not pursued farther.

Held (Hall and Laskin JJ. dissenting): The appeal should be dismissed.

Per Curiam:
There was a duty on the part of the respondent K in his capacity as a host and as the owner and operator of the cabin cruiser to do the best he could to effect the rescue of M.

Per Judson, Ritchie and Spence JJ.: <the majority>
There was no suggestion that there was any negligence in the rescue of Horsley and for MacLaren to be held liable to the appel­lants it was necessary that such liability stem from a finding that the situation of peril brought about by Matthews falling into the water was thereafter, within the next three or four minutes, so aggravated by the negligence of MacLaren in attempting his rescue as to induce Horsley to risk his life by diving in after him. Although the procedure followed by MacLaren was not the most highly recommended one, the evidence did not justify a finding that any fault of his induced Horsley to risk his life by diving as he did. If MacLaren erred in backing in-stead of turning the cruiser and proceeding "bow on", the error was one of judgment and not negli­gence, and in the circumstances ought to be excused.

Per Hall and Laskin JJ., dissenting:
The view that MacLaren had been merely guilty of an error of judgment was not accepted. This was not a case where MacLaren had failed to execute the required manoeuvre properly, but rather one where he had not followed the method of rescue which, on the uncontradictory evidence, was the proper one to employ in an emergency, and there was no external reason for his failure to do so. This breach of duty to Matthews could properly be regarded as prompting Horsley to attempt a rescue. He was not wanton or foolhardy and his action was not unforeseeable. In the concern of the occasion, and having regard to MacLaren's breach of duty, Horsley could not be charged with contributory negli­gence in acting as he did.

One of your exam-question cases. You may see some similarity to the case you chose to present in this thread.

Note that the suit was eventually dismissed. It was found that the defendant DID have a duty of care, but did NOT act negligently toward the people to whom he owed that duty.

The store management, in your case, owed the customers a duty of care.

WHETHER IT ACTED NEGLIGENTLY in discharging that duty is A QUESTION FOR A JURY, in your legal system.

THAT is what the appellate decision you presented says.

... the law must generally be readily comprehensible to laymen (with a modicum of effort). When the legal culture practically requires you to consult a lawyer (often at significant expense) before so much as passing wind, it's a sign your country's legal system may have become overly complex.

Of course, Anglo-Saxon legal systems do suffer from the complication that jurisprudence plays a large role in judicial interpretation, which means you can have rather an extensive amount of case law to plow through, and that does indeed require specialist training. But when someone argues that you absolutely need to have a law degree to understand, let alone have an opinion about, legal matters, the PolSci major in me responds that, in that case, the legal system is due for an overhaul.

Besides, one of the fun things about legal opinions is that you never have to go far to find a dissenting opinion from an equally qualified jurist. How many rulings by U.S. Courts of Appeals and the Supreme Court have been unanimous? How many of us think Scalia's opinions generally aren't worth the paper they're written on, even though he's supposedly one of the most qualified judges in the country?

Moreover, laws are the means by which the legislature expresses policy, and to argue that laymen are unqualified to understand the law thus raises some disturbing questions about the nature of our system of government. After all, if only lawyers are capable of understanding the law, would it not follow that therefore only lawyers are qualified to vote for legislators? I don't think I like that idea.

to TPaine7's case, in which the store management was not at all ignorant about its duty of care to its customers, and what kind of acts might breach that duty of care ... how?

Me, I expect that the owners of commercial premises I am invited into, to spend my money, and the management of the businesses operating therein and doing the inviting, will consult lawyers, if that's what it takes, to determine what their duties to me are, and will conduct themselves in a way that doesn't breach those duties and doesn't put me in harm's way.


Moreover, laws are the means by which the legislature expresses policy, and to argue that laymen are unqualified to understand the law thus raises some disturbing questions about the nature of our system of government.

Who did that?

I have stated that TPaine7 is unqualified to give legal opinions.

That doesn't mean that he couldn't inform himself at least to the point that he understands what the ISSUES in the case he is misrepresenting were.

After all, if only lawyers are capable of understanding the law, would it not follow that therefore only lawyers are qualified to vote for legislators?

I expect TPaine7 is capable of understanding the issues in this case. Can't and won't aren't the same things.

Besides, one of the fun things about legal opinions is that you never have to go far to find a dissenting opinion from an equally qualified jurist.

And lookie there -- the SCC decision I cited was actually a 3-2 decision. What you don't see there is disagreement about what the ISSUES were, and about the DUTY OF CARE owed by one of the parties to the others.

TPaine7 is quite welcome to say that a particular decision was a bad decision, based on what the law is, etc. Or even to say that the law is bad law.

To say either of those things without KNOWING WHAT THE LAW IS is simply moronic. To persist in doing that, when offered an opportunity to know what one doesn't know, is wilfully moronic, at best.

To say either of those things without KNOWING WHAT THE LAW IS is simply moronic. To persist in doing that, when offered an opportunity to know what one doesn't know, is wilfully moronic, at best.

I don't know the details of the legal theory that justified returning slaves to their "owners." So from an antebellum Southern lawyer's perspective, I don't "know what the law is." And yet I am very qualified to condemn the law. And I do condemn it.

I don't know the details of Nazi law that permitted or authorized death camps, yet I condemn that law. I don't know the details of Japanese law that allowed "comfort women", yet I condemn that law. I don't know the details of Soviet law that permitted or authorized the gulags, nor do I care to. Yet I condemn that law.

A legal system that allows a serial killer who slips on a toy on his way to massacre a family to sue that family is morally indefensible. I don't need to understand the legal minutia to say that. I don't need to know "what the law is"--only the law's results.

Ditto for being sued for silently calling the police.

The common law of civil liability, which holds businesses that invite people in to spend their money to a relatively high standard when it comes to the duty of care owed to those people (you have any idea what that is yet?), and which holds them liable for damages those people suffer when that duty is breached, if the causal connection is established, is comparable to the statutes of the US south governing slavery and ... wait for it ... Hitler's legislation.

I think somebody just lost.


And the fact that you continue to say this:

being sued for silently calling the police.

despite the fact that you know or ought to know by now -- and in fact cannot help but know -- that your statement is false, well that just says a lot about you.



html fixed

Hitler's legislation was used to show that your claim--I need to understand what the law is to condemn it--is false. I did not compare Hitler's legislation to this case.

I compared a serial killer falling on his way to massacre a family and being able to sue the family to this case. As I recall, you have already agreed that that comparison is valid.

I think somebody just lost.

You may be right.

Hitler's legislation was used to show that your claim--I need to understand what the law is to condemn it--is false.

You don't need to understand something in order to condemn it. I do have that right?

Unbelievable.

You invoked Hitler FOR NO RELEVANT PURPOSE.

You do NOT understand what the law you are "condemning" in this thread is. Not remotely. Not at all. Not for an instant.

You don't understand its purpose, its principles, its scope of application - anything about it.

You MISSTATE all of those things repeatedly. You may actually understand it. I wouldn't know. For whatever reason, you MISREPRESENT IT.

What you are doing is actually equivalent to saying that Hitler passed laws to protect Jews, gypsies and homosexuals. And communists. That would be equivalent evidence that you didn't "understand" Hitler's laws.


I compared a serial killer falling on his way to massacre a family and being able to sue the family to this case. As I recall, you have already agreed that that comparison is valid.

Ah yes, so cute, you "recall".

Your comparison is specious. Unless there is some jurisdiction that actually imposes a duty of care on a householder to a trespasser that is higher than the "no traps" duty, and hey, you might indeed have some reasonable grounds for objecting to that standard.

The standard in this case was the duty of care owed under local law to INVITEES. Look that one up. Nothing whatsoever to do with housebreakers.

If you want to "condemn" that law, you had better know what it is first. Or not, and look like a moronic/dishonest person. Whatever.

who may choose not to come (they are within their rights to do that) or if they do show up, you are responsible for their actions.

Seems the loser either way is the victim. You're either shot by the perp because you are unarmed, shot because the police didn't show up, or arrested because they did.

Why do gun grabbers always seem to come out on the side of the criminal?

Personally I'd say the victims have more claim on our sympathies.

... Talk about unqualified. Some are even unqualified to reply to posts on internet boards.

Of course, when the posts are as incoherent as the one in question here ...

a failure on your part to comprehend with incoherence on my part.

You shouldn't confuse a failure on your part to comprehend with incoherence on my part.


You shouldn't confuse my calling TPaine7's OP incoherent with my reference to your failure to comprehend it.

Oops. I guess you did.

now I could certainly believe that you mistyped. That seems to happen alot.

Some are even unqualified to reply to posts on internet boards.

reply to POSTS on internet boards: you replied to TPaine7's POST.


Of course, when the posts are as incoherent as the one in question here ...

posts are as incoherent as the ONE in question: as the POST in question -- TPaine7's POST, the post IN QUESTION.


Understanding the basic structures of the language you speak is kind of a necessity when you decide to speak it in public.

Otherwise, you run a very high risk of making an idiot of yourself.

A refreshing break from merely denying you had ever posted anything.

Without a right to self defense, and in an environment where police aren't required to provide defense, and where the victim may be held liable for the actions of those police, then the victim is left without a viable option.

I could file suit on you right this second for breathing air and it would be 100% legal.

In fact, I have a civil right to sue you for breathing air. I could also sue you for not agreeing with me.


What is not certain, is the outcome. It is of course highly unlikely that I would win such a suit. 99.99% of all judges would summarily toss the suit.

But that's what the courts are for. To settle suits (i.e. arguments)

All the appellate court did, was rule that a jury is entitled to determine if that suit had any merit.

Yes. You have the right to call the police. And breathe.

Assuming what you say is true (and I am neither denying nor accepting your characterization of the state of the law), the law is an ass.

I already know that litigation is used as a weapon when both parties know it is meritless. But if you can literally sue someone for breathing air or for disagreeing with you and force the expense of a jury trial, that emphatically proves my earlier point:

"The law is an ass"

But if you can literally sue someone for breathing air or for disagreeing with you and force the expense of a jury trial, that emphatically proves my earlier point:

Now try reading the story of the case you misrepresented, ONE MORE TIME.

The issue was dismissal of the suit at a preliminary stage, BEFORE any jury trial.

IF no cause of action had been disclosed, or presumably any facts alleged that would support any finding of liability, THEN the suit would NOT have proceeded to trial.

The original court ruled precisely that. The appellate court overruled it. Courts aren't "right", they're authoritative. The court could have been "wrong". But it directed its mind to the correct issue, and made a finding.

Have you made any effort whatsoever to determine what became of the suit once the appellate court ruled on the summary dismissal?


And btw, have your judicial systems never met the concept of "costs", which allows for people who institute frivolous or vexatious proceedings to have at least a portion of the other party's costs awarded against them?

Where I'm at, costs are routinely awarded against the losing party in a civil action, and where a plaintiff was plainly acting in bad faith, the amount will go up. Common sense can help a lot.

but it usually doesn't gain support.

I never understood why.
Just an anachronism of the American civil system I guess.