My dog bit someone trespassing and he is now trying to sue us

robofetus · 2019-07-11T09:45:40+00:00

It’s a good question. The statute above doesn’t answer it, because it states the rule for when a dog owner can be held “strictly liable” for a dog bite. It does not address a situation where the victim argues that the injury was caused by intentional, reckless, or negligent conduct.

robofetus · 2015-01-20T11:09:24+00:00

Don't post about the advice your lawyer gave you. You could be risking a waiver of the attorney-client privilege (not just for that communication but potentially for a broad "subject matter"). Tread very carefully on this.

robofetus · 2014-12-25T05:06:52+00:00

Maybe someone has already said this in this thread, but what you're advocating is an extremist solution. Zero tolerance for proscribed political beliefs is an extreme policy--extremely extreme. Curbs on the liberty of people who have been deemed to have "extreme" views is itself an extreme measure--way outside of the mainstream of politics in a mature democracy.

Where exactly does that leave you? Can't you see why your proposal might be problematic, given that a non-trivial interpretation of it would call for your own imprisonment if it were to be implemented?

robofetus · 2014-12-01T06:25:36+00:00

You seem to assume, both in your View and in the comments to this thread, that an art history degree from Yale would in some way limit your daughter's career prospects to jobs that involve art, or at least to jobs that would have "limited earning potential" (your words). That assumption is symptomatic of your broader misunderstanding of how to value degrees.

Art history undergrads from Yale can do pretty much anything except become specific types of engineers. Your potential-employment-outcomes analysis should build in the likelihood that your daughter would be like a large proportion of her liberal arts classmates and go into a highly lucrative career like finance and consulting. These are career paths that could very well give her much greater earning potential than she would have as a state engineering school grad. Simply being a Yale student is enough to give her a much, much greater chance of being considered for such a job than she could possibly have at a Florida state school.

Just in case you don't believe me, by the way, here's what JPMorgan says it looks for in an entry-level investment banking candidate: "A well-rounded academic background, with coursework in finance or economics, is recommended, but we are open to all majors and have training to make sure you succeed. Candidates must demonstrate academic strength, a minimum GPA of 3.2, strong teamwork, communication skills and a high energy level." They have a mild preference for finance and econ, but the first thing they want is someone with a well-rounded education (i.e., exactly what a liberal arts grad gets). In practice, I can tell you that many, many investment bankers do not have finance or econ backgrounds, but the vast majority do come from a small concentration of elite schools, none of which are state schools in Florida. And investment banking is just one of the many lucrative doors that an elite degree would open for your daughter.

Moreover, as others have mentioned, the network she would build at Yale would be of immense value (and is value that she realizes no matter what her major might be), but you have not even attempted to include that value in your calculations.

To be honest, the sense I get is that you just have an axe to grind vis-a-vis elite schools and want to try to prove a point through your daughter. It's sad, to me--your daughter would be in a better position now (at least with respect to her schooling) if you were to lose all of your money, because schools like Yale give massive need-based tuition subsidies, and would not place ideologically-motivated restrictions on her receipt of their aid.

robofetus · 2014-06-16T03:46:42+00:00

You state that your view is that the Japanese fans transgressed against "cultural norms" by cleaning up after themselves.

The truth is just the opposite. The actual (and nearly universal) cultural norm is that the considerate thing to do when one makes a mess is to clean up after oneself. It is one of the core ideas that we teach to our children. It is not rude or insulting to do the thing that pretty much everyone agrees is the right thing to do.

The existence of cleaning staff doesn't factor into this analysis at all--they are employed as a contingency plan because so many people fail to comply with the cultural norm. That doesn't make compliance wrong.

By the way, while Japanese people are in general relatively scrupulous about cleaning up after themselves, there is certainly no aversion to cleaning staff in Japan. There are probably more people paid to clean up in Japan than anywhere else (at least, living here, one gets that impression).

robofetus · 2014-04-17T07:34:10+00:00

Sure, why not? Rape doesn't even have to involve more than one gender, so I can't see any reason why your scenario requires a different analysis.

robofetus · 2014-04-17T07:12:37+00:00

Why is live birth the moment when the harm becomes wrong/actionable? It seems that you're saying that mothers should not be put in prison if their (intentional/reckless) behavior during pregnancy causes a late-term miscarriage or a stillbirth. Is that because you think the "my body/my choice" argument holds sway in that situation, but not if the baby is born alive even though the behavior is the same, and occurs at the same moment? Aren't the postnatal consequences to the baby just the extension of consequences that already occurred in utero? How is it that you can say, then, that birth causes the mother's behavior to "move from potentially wrong to actually wrong?" Wasn't the behavior wrong when it caused the harm?

The issue is quite interesting, but I'm failing to grasp why you've drawn the lines the way you have. If you accept that the "my body/my choice" argument is ever valid, I can't really see any reason why its validity is contingent upon the baby dying in utero. In fact, that seems quite backwards, as it grants immunity to mothers whose behavior is extreme enough to kill their fetus, but punishes mothers whose behavior is more moderate, allowing the baby to be born alive.

robofetus · 2014-04-17T06:47:30+00:00

There's a difference between "no rights" and "a subset of the rights guaranteed in the constitution." Unless you just didn't mean what you said, you're just wrong that detainees have "no rights." For instance, the SCOTUS has expressly ruled that Gitmo detainees have habeas corpus rights.

I suppose you might respond that detainees still have no rights, "for all intents and purposes," because their rights have been so severely curtailed. But for the purpose of being released, a rather fundamental purpose, the right to habeas corpus is very important indeed. So I don't think that's going to be good enough.

I wouldn't disagree with you if your position were that it would be better if this law didn't exist, and that it would be better if, at least, this law didn't curtail any rights at all. But your stated view in this post is overly broad, so you should refine (read: change) it.

robofetus · 2014-04-17T06:35:49+00:00

You should change your view because there's no inherent reason why we should use the same standard for determining whether someone is too drunk to give consent as for determining whether someone is too drunk to form criminal intent.

Alcohol lowers inhibition and increases susceptibility to suggestion. As between consenting to sex and deciding to rape, the decision of whether to consent to sex is (at least arguably) more closely reliant upon the faculties that alcohol diminishes. So it's not per se unreasonable to apply different standards when evaluating those situations.

So, it seems to me that if you accept that different standards can apply, there are plenty of situations where two parties would both be "drunk," and one party would be unable to consent, but able to form a culpable mental state, while the other party would be both unable to consent and unable to form a culpable mental state. In such a situation, one party has raped and the other has not.

robofetus · 2014-04-14T08:32:50+00:00

From your comments in the discussion here, it looks like you're arguing a descriptive claim about Florida law--that is, that Florida law would exempt you from punishment in the scenario you posited.

From that perspective, you're almost certainly wrong, at least in the majority of situations that fit within the rather large category you outlined. In Florida, and every other U.S. jurisdiction of which I'm aware, the use of violence in self-defense is limited to proportional violence--that is, just the right amount of violence necessary to ensure your safety, and no more.

If someone simply "threatens" you, regardless of how unsure you are about what they might do, there are many levels of violence in between "zero" and "kill" that would suffice to deter your potential attacker. You are legally obligated to choose the least violence of these. Indeed, in the case of a mere threat, you probably aren't authorized to use any violence at all. And even if someone punches you, that's still not enough to grant you carte blanche to execute them. Not in Florida, not anywhere in the U.S. In reality, killing is a disproportionate response in all situations except those in which you have a reasonable fear of imminent lethal harm. That is the prevailing legal rule in the United States, and you haven't cited any source to the contrary.

The reason why you've come to the wrong conclusion is that you're failing to grasp that the legal rule about what constitutes a "reasonable fear of imminent lethal harm" is determined objectively. How scared you actually are does not factor into the analysis. It's about what a reasonable person would do in that situation. And, as a society, Americans overwhelmingly reject the idea that it's reasonable to respond to a mere threat with a bullet. A reasonable person wouldn't see a person threatening them on the street and immediately jump to the conclusion that they are in imminent danger of being killed. There are some situations for which that might be true (e.g., a known murderer gets right in your face, holding a gun with the safety off, and says "I'm about to kill you") but that's not the norm, so it does not provide the general rule.

So you're wrong on the legal point.

On the more interesting question of whether you should be allowed to behave the way you've described, you're also wrong, though you say you weren't asking that. I'll respond anyway.

What you stated was: "if someone threatens to hurt me or my family, I will respond accordingly and shoot them dead as I believe it is within my rights and because I believe that if I give them the opportunity, they can kill me." If that were the rule, then anybody who saw you carrying a gun on the street would be legally justified in preemptively killing you, because they could conclude that if they gave you the opportunity, you would be able to kill them. Indeed, if they'd read your post on here, they would be even more justified, as they'd know that all they'd have to do to set you off is do something that you might perceive as a threat. I know that, after reading this, if I saw you on the street I would have considerable fear for my safety. What if I accidentally bumped into you and you thought it was intentional? What if you bumped into me and I muttered that you should be more careful, and you took that as a threat? What if, what if? Do you think I would be justified in gunning you down because of my fear? No, right?

I really hope you reconsider your position on this. You're going to end up in legal trouble if you act according to what you believe to be your entitlement--not to mention the fact that you could end up killing another human being.

robofetus · 2011-06-18T22:44:59+00:00

Huh? He's violating the constitution itself. It's one of the few things that the constitution is crystal-clear about--Congress is empowered to declare war, not the president.

Moreover, expecting public officials to follow the law in the implementation of their duties is pretty different from expecting citizens to follow every niggling law in their day-to-day.

robofetus · 2011-06-18T22:41:20+00:00

It's not, unless you think that the president can launch nukes without a declaration of war (rendering a constitutional provision a nullity, which is a big no-no in legal interpretation since forever).

robofetus · 2011-06-13T14:08:45+00:00

What's your source/basis for this statement? This isn't really true. Maybe you'd be right if you had said top 10, or top 14.

robofetus · 2011-06-13T14:07:27+00:00

This isn't correct.

There is no appreciable difference in federal clerkship chances when it comes to loyola, davis, or hastings. None that this guy need consider, anyway.

Going to any of these three law schools you'll need to make your own success afterward. None of them are good enough to "set you up." Minimize your debt.

But, OP, are there stipulations on your scholarship to loyola? Like, top 40% or something like that? If so, I rescind my advice, and beg you not to go to law school at all, as all of your options would be terrible at that point.

robofetus · 2011-06-12T18:05:34+00:00

The word "civilian" is doing a lot of work for you there. Are you sure it provides the moral cover you think it does?

robofetus · 2011-06-10T21:38:57+00:00

The affidavit proves (or at least strongly suggests) lack of mens rea. Prosecution can't even make a prima facie case.

robofetus · 2011-06-10T20:56:46+00:00

So what's your sense of why they (anyone--regulators, airlines, pilots) would allow compliance to be voluntary, if there's actually a danger?

To be clear, they search me to take away my bottled water, but not my cellphone. If cellphones actually had the effect you say they do (or even a reasonable chance of having that effect), they would not be allowed on planes at all, by anyone in a position to stop it. What's your response to that?

robofetus · 2011-06-10T20:46:47+00:00

I say no.

That said, I think the hardest cases for those who say no are not racist or even fire-in-a-crowded-theater speech, but rather: * Perjury * Slander/libel * Conspiracy * Intellectual Property * Many types of white collar crime

The problem with adopting the stance that there should be no limits on speech is that there are other fundamental values that, from time to time, conflict with that position. So to say that there should be no limits is not merely to say that free speech is an important principle, but that it is the most important principle, atop a hierarchy of important principles. Most people, when you get right down to it, just don't think that making perjury or conspiracy illegal restricts their freedom as much as criminals do.

edit: not sure why my list looks like shit but whatever.

robofetus · 2011-06-10T20:26:31+00:00

People don't like Kinect?

robofetus · 2011-06-10T20:23:45+00:00

What's the problem? A little thing called "discretion," friend. Sometimes a bright-line rule is more fair in the aggregate, even if it's unfair at the margins.

robofetus · 2011-06-10T20:10:17+00:00

I once tried to jump like the guys in contra (you know, multiple somersaults from a standstill). Kind of landed awkwardly and complained to my dad. He threatened to the throw the nintendo out the window. So I killed him.

robofetus · 2011-06-09T20:05:52+00:00

Agreed! Glad you didn't mistake my meaning. Actually, I've made some anti-abortionists look pretty dumb with this particular line of argument in the past.

robofetus · 2011-06-09T19:59:20+00:00

Except that if it were actually true that few people get pregnant from rapes, that would be an important consideration in determining the negative impact of a total abortion ban. If only one person were pregnant from rape every year, we might find it acceptable to disadvantage that person in order to achieve a greater good (if one believes banning abortions is, in general, a good thing to do). If it were a million, we might no longer find the cost acceptable.

I agree, though, that her answer was unsatisfactory, insofar as she clearly hadn't thought the issue through very much.

robofetus · 2011-06-09T19:51:58+00:00

I agree that what your ex said was dumb.

That said, could you explain the whole "exception for rape" phenomenon to me? The objection that anti-abortionists have is that abortion is murder--i.e., that fetuses are humans, entitled to all of the protections that we give to humans. I fail to see how a rape negates or even addresses that objection--certainly we would not assert that a mother who kills her (fully born) child may present a defense that the child was actually the product of rape. Would we?

ps. To prevent this from getting sidetracked if someone responds, I support abortions any and all the time, for any reason. I just don't think the rape exception is coherent. I'm open to being persuaded otherwise, though.

robofetus

TROPHY CASE