Have You Been Injured?
Bainbridge addresses the question we all want to know the answer to: Can the ambulance chaser be held liable for knowingly exposing hundreds of people to a deadly disease?
Let the punishment fit the crime. Hang him by his lungs.
UPDATE: Diane Sawyer ventures into quarantine. The ambulance chanser’s CDC TB-expert microbiologist apparently didn’t consider an active case of drug-resistant TB to be a big deal. It was all boilerplate CYA. With vid.
Topics: human organs, lawyers
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 12:51 am on Friday, June 1, 2007
26 Responses to “Have You Been Injured?”
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June 1st, 2007 at 1:17 am
Although I sympathize, I wholly disagree with someone being able to sue because they’ve been made fearful, which is an utterly nonobjective criteria, impossible to judge. But the offending carrier is certainly responsible for anyone on that flight who contracts the infection due to his fear. If he was so fearful, he ought to have made arrangements privately to fly home under controlled circumstances.
June 1st, 2007 at 9:45 am
Salty,
The law is full of nonobjective criteria that have to be weighed, which is why we need judges and juries. The very definition of assault requires that the victim feels threatened. If this guy makes 1,000 people fear for the next two months that they could have contracted a rare, incurable form of TB, their fear is reasonable and the guy should have to pay for it.
June 1st, 2007 at 10:01 am
Creating victims so that they can be compensated for an impact that can’t be quantified, eh? That’s a fine example of how litigious our society has become, corndog. Especially since “nonobjective” = “subjective” = “opinion”, and judges/juries decisions are influenced by the opinions of “experts”…..who can’t quantify “fear” and rely on their professional opinion….which sometimes ventures into twinky science and emotional manipulation.
You gotta love those “nonobjective” criteria, especially when the plaintiff’s lawyer(s) get a healthy cut from the award, usuallly on top of their expenses.
Cynical? About our legal system? Me? Why would you think that?
For myself, were I on those airplanes, I would prefer first preventative treatment for the TB (at the shyster’s expense, of course) just in case, and then a public apology from the twit. And if he refused to apologize, hanging him by his lungs would be a nice second place.
June 1st, 2007 at 10:06 am
I think what brother Corndog is trying to say is that, while all lawyers of course should be hanged, when it is a personal injury lawyer, we should torture and impoverish him with frivolous and annoying torts first.
June 1st, 2007 at 10:20 am
Just because there are a slew of non-objective laws on the books doesn’t mean there ought to be a slew of non-objective laws on the books. The only way any individual is truly protected–which is what the law is supposed to do–is when laws are objective and apply equally to every individual. The subversion of objective criteria within the legal system means its played deuces wild and justice takes a back seat to whim.
June 1st, 2007 at 10:33 am
Well, yes, actually there do need to be lots of non-objective laws on the books. Just think about the situation at hand. Do you really think that someone who puts a crowd of people in fear for their lives for months has not caused those people any harm? Do you think these people are not entitled to get to court because they have to use “non-objective” laws?
The only question is how that harm can be measured. Usually, it’s by how a reasonable person would be expected to react. And a judge will only allow expert evidence that has a scientific basis to it. These protections get you away from “whim” or “twinky science,” whatever that is, and gets you to a serious consideration of the amount of harm the guy has caused.
June 1st, 2007 at 10:59 am
Seeing Diane Sawyer, with Andrew Speaker reminds me of a Don Henley song.
We got the bubble-headed-bleach-blonde who
Comes on at five
She can tell you bout the plane crash with a gleam
In her eye
Its interesting when people die-
Give us dirty laundry
June 1st, 2007 at 11:47 am
I don’t understand why on earth Speaker hasn’t been charged with crime. If someone becomes “active”, or in fact is diagnosed with TB he certainly should be. Leave aside the ‘money’ and ‘litigation’ that all know will follow and reasons for, could be as asinine as ‘I have an hangnail’ to ‘I have a mortal fear of flying now’.
I believe screaming FIRE, in a darkened crowded theater, is against the law. I believe firing off a pistol, even though no injury occurred, is against the law.
I would certainly hope that boarding a plane, with a disease that could spread with as little as a sneeze, cough, touching your mouth and shaking hands with a fellow passengers, or leaving a plate of food, with food residue that came from the mouth of the infected individual, that an individual that cleans that plate, could somehow breathe in the the infected residue, would be considered a crime.
In this case a person with the professional knowledge, that the ordinary layperson does not have, that deliberately conceals that fact, would in my opinion be guilty by reason of omission.
Aldous Huxley said, “Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”.
June 1st, 2007 at 11:49 am
El Cid,
Guilty of what?
June 1st, 2007 at 11:50 am
the the…is an accepted speaking term. Ladies and gentlmen of the jury, I present to you, one Mr. Porky Pig. I rest my case.
June 1st, 2007 at 12:34 pm
I said I wouldn’t do this…now I will have to shower…..and live with myself for as long as that is. Anyone here have an automatic self flagellation machine, my arms get tired really quickly. And talking to myself, makes people stare. Same thing happens when and if I fly, though. Both, actually.
The crime of omission occurs when you violate or disregard your accepted duties and responsibilities.
Especially for one with knowledge that he carries a very dangerous and deadly disease and who happens to be an attorney, personal injury, at that.
While I’m at it, there is a difference bewteen something being “taped” and a “listening device”.
June 1st, 2007 at 12:35 pm
bewteen…is prior to becoming a “teen”.
June 1st, 2007 at 1:06 pm
Ah, El Cid, there is no “crime” of omission. That’s an enitre category of crimes. Look it up.
June 1st, 2007 at 2:13 pm
Jules, I don’t think we need to hang all the lawyers. There are a few good ones, and we need to keep a couple of the slimiest shysters around (in cages) as examples of what lawyers should not be.
Manufacturing victims for personal profit is morally repugnant. If someone catches the actually catches TB from this cretin, that’s a different matter. But “fear” is a part of our lives, as much as love or anger. Letting it control you is not something the courts should get involved with……maybe a counselor, but not a judge or jury.
People live with fear all the time; if people are due compensation for that, I can retire right now.
June 1st, 2007 at 2:25 pm
O.C.G.A. § 16-2-1 (Copy w/ Cite)
Pages: 2
O.C.G.A. § 16-2-1
GEORGIA CODE
Copyright 2006 by The State of Georgia
All rights reserved.
*** Current through the 2006 Regular Session ***
TITLE 16. CRIMES AND OFFENSES
CHAPTER 2. CRIMINAL LIABILITY
ARTICLE 1. CULPABILITY
O.C.G.A. § 16-2-1 (2006)
§ 16-2-1. “Crime” defined
(a) A “crime” is a violation of a statute of this state in which there is a joint operation of an act or omission to act and intention or criminal negligence.
(b) Criminal negligence is an act or failure to act which demonstrates a willful, wanton, or reckless disregard for the safety of others who might reasonably be expected to be injured thereby.
HISTORY: Laws 1833, Cobb’s 1851 Digest, p. 779; Code 1863, § 4188; Code 1868, § 4227; Code 1873, § 4292; Code 1882, § 4292; Penal Code 1895, § 31; Penal Code 1910, § 31; Code 1933, § 26-201; Code 1933, § 26-601, enacted by Ga. L. 1968, p. 1249, § 1; Ga. L. 2004, p. 57, § 2.
http://www.georgia.gov/00/channel_title/0,2094,4802_5031,00.html
View: TOC | Full | Custom 1 of 1
Text Only
Book Browse
O.C.G.A. § 16-2-1 (Copy w/ Cite)
Pages: 2
June 1st, 2007 at 2:36 pm
O.C.G.A. § 16-2-6 (Copy w/ Cite)
Pages: 1
O.C.G.A. § 16-2-6
GEORGIA CODE
Copyright 2006 by The State of Georgia
All rights reserved.
*** Current through the 2006 Regular Session ***
TITLE 16. CRIMES AND OFFENSES
CHAPTER 2. CRIMINAL LIABILITY
ARTICLE 1. CULPABILITY
O.C.G.A. § 16-2-6 (2006)
§ 16-2-6. Intention a question of fact
A person will not be presumed to act with criminal intention but the trier of facts may find such intention upon consideration of the words, conduct, demeanor, motive, and all other circumstances connected with the act for which the accused is prosecuted.
June 1st, 2007 at 2:45 pm
Should Andrew Speaker infect one person, I would say under the State of Georgia law, he could be charged with a crime. If said infected person dies….Speaker could be at a loss for words.
June 1st, 2007 at 2:47 pm
Thanks, Cid, so criminal negligence is the crime you want to charge him with (I assume this is your immature way of admitting you were wrong about “the crime of omission.”)
Criminal negligence is plausible, especially after he was informed in Europe of the nature of his TB. Problem, though, is that his actions occurred from Europe to Canada, so you could only get him on the portion of his trip from the time he crossed the border into the US and then was taken into custody.
June 1st, 2007 at 2:52 pm
He boarded that plane in Atlanta, Georgia. The crime could be prosecuted there, or anyState or country that would choose to extradite him.
There again, if you read and can comprehend, of an act or omission to act and intention or criminal negligence..
ANY immaturity comes from you. I present fact, you move the “goalposts”.
June 1st, 2007 at 2:53 pm
Well you could be right…Speaker walked somewhere else and caught the original flight.
June 1st, 2007 at 2:54 pm
And since he resided in Atlanta…that walking elswhere, just could be correct..
June 1st, 2007 at 3:03 pm
In a phone interview with the Atlanta Constitution-Journal from an Atlanta hospital earlier this week, Speaker explained that he knew he had TB when he flew from Atlanta to Europe in mid-May for his wedding and honeymoon, but that he didn’t find out until he was already there that it was an extensively drug-resistant strain considered especially dangerous.
Despite warnings from federal health officials not to board another long flight, he flew home for treatment — fearing he wouldn’t survive if he didn’t reach the U.S.
I’m curious what liabilities Speaker faces for his decision to fly knowing he was infected with a very dangerous disease.
Did he violate any federal criminal statute by flying, especially after having been warned not to do so? If so, in addition to any potential criminal liability, he may also face tort suits from anyone he infected while on those flights on a negligence per se theory or, in the alternative, using the statutory violation as prima facie evidence of negligence. Such theores have been used successfully in some states in connection with the transmission of venereal diseases.
If there is no statutory violation on which to hang tort liability, would he be liable anyway? In Tort Liability for Infliction of Venereal Disease, 40 A.L.R.4th 1089, we learn that:
Although there are some contrary decisions, the courts have held the actual or alleged communication of a venereal disease to establish or support a tort cause of action on the grounds of assault and battery, fraud, negligence, seduction, and other or unspecified grounds.
Indeed, transmission and infection may not be necessary for liability in some cases. In 59 A.L.R.5th 535, we learn that:
Since the recognition of AIDS as a distinct condition, courts have had to deal with numerous types of claims involving the disease. One type of claim seeks to recover for damages attributable to a fear of contracting HIV or AIDS. Sometimes plaintiffs assert an independent tort claim for negligent or intentional infliction of emotional distress; sometimes plaintiffs identify emotional distress as one type of injury arising from the defendant’s other wrongful conduct such as medical malpractice or battery. Claims based on a fear of contracting AIDS have been brought pursuant to common law and under statute—for example, under the Federal Employer’s Liability Act (FELA). “AIDS-phobia” claims are still relatively new to the courts, and this area of the law is still developing, resulting in some inconsistency within jurisdictions as to what is required to support recovery.
But what about a non-venereal disease? From 6 A.L.R.5th 162, we learn:
In Plummer v United States (1978, CA3 Pa) 580 F2d 72 (applying Pennsylvania law), Federal Tort Claims Act (28 U.S.C.A. §§ 2671 et seq.) litigation, prisoners impacted by tubercle bacilli were held entitled to damages for mental suffering for their fear of having contracted active tuberculosis or of transmitting it to others in the future.
If prisoners can recover, surely passengers can. Right? Any tort law experts know the answer for sure? (Also, any tort law experts know of a theory on which the airline could be held liable?) Certainly, it seems likely that the exposed passengers are suffering emotional distress:
Laney Wiggins, said she is awaiting her skin test results, expected Friday. “I’m very nervous,” Wiggins told The (Columbia) State newspaper. “It’s kind of sad that this is overshadowing the wonderful time we had in Europe.”
Who can blame her? Speaker’s conduct was selfish, narcissistic, and wholly lacking in regard for others.
Georgia doesn’t appear to have a legal ethics under which Speaker could get in trouble. Nothing seems to address “conduct unbecoming” or “conduct that brings the proession into disrepute,” at least outside the context of representation of a client. OTOH, if Speaker is convicted of any felony or “a misdemeanor involving moral turpitude where the underlying conduct relates to the lawyer’s fitness to practice law,” he could be disbarred on those grounds.
Posted on May 31, 2007 in Law - General | Permalink
June 1st, 2007 at 3:13 pm
Now excuse me, I must shower. No intent, I do so every day…most times, twice. The damn laptop ain’t gonna like it one bit, though.
June 1st, 2007 at 3:45 pm
Cid,
Oh, my god, you read this: of an act or omission to act and intention or criminal negligence” and you think that means “crime of omission”? That’s just so stupidly wrong I don’t know where to begin.
As to charging him for getting on the plane in Atlanta, it’s my understanding that he wasn’t aware of the contagiousness of his TB until he got to Europe. You couldn’t charge him for criminal negligence until he was aware that being on the plane could harm others.
Otherwise, you’d be arresting everyone who gets on a plane who has TB. And I’m thinking, that idea wouldn’t go down to well on a Jules Crittenden website.
June 1st, 2007 at 4:40 pm
Q: What is a crime of omission?
A: An offense that carries as its material component the failure to act.
http://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/frequentlyAskedQuestions.cfm
Begin here…..
June 1st, 2007 at 4:42 pm
Last post to ya’ sport, or sportette. Fini. Done. Over. Roger and out.