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Gaming Companies Being Sued Over Columbine
Rajeev Raghavan writes: "According to this article at the Denver Post. One of the families of the slain teachers at Columbine is suing 25 game companies for $5 billion in damages plus damages of $5000 to $10 million for individual parties in the class action law suit. Great, lets blame more people for our problems, shall we."
iD software should COUNTER-SUE, claiming that the parents' irresponsible guardianship led their children to cause harm to the business, by creating a situation in which the company's video games became linked, in the news media, to their killing spree.
The reduction in sales has cost iD software millions of dollars. The parents are liable for that loss!
Hey, it's no more inane than what's being claimed by big bad John DeCamp...
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In this case, I imagine the lawyer is doing it pro bono (for free). It is typical in American pro bono cases, for the lawyer's percentage to be as high as 40%. Thus. 40% of 5 billion dollars - a hefty 2 billion. That should cover his costs rather nicely, with a few pennies left over.
Plus, the publicity generated ensures him cases into eternity, even if he does lose.
He knows what he's doing.
Yep. Sounds like those darned video games are to blame to me. . .
Except for when he's not.
That is one transparent way of lying or self-deception. It's related to
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"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
...Kids with guns, lots of guns, kill people.
The plaintiff seeks remedies, presumably for negligence, resulting from allegations that a computer game tortiously resulted in the injury, death and mental injury suffered by the students in Columbine. Even assuming that the first amendment the claim could stand after a first amendment analysis, it seems an unlikely result.
Its very difficult to be liable under a negligence theory for the criminal intentional acts of a third party. The Plaintiff will have to prove that the defendants owed a duty of care to the particular plaintiffs (or in the case of wrongful death, the decedents), and further that the video game caused (not just in the "but for" sense, but also in the sense of legally, or proximally causing the result). This is an enormously tough row to hoe, both legally and factually.
In each case, the plaintiff will have to prove that it was forseeable that this particular individual would have injured these particular defendants, or similarly situated defendants. Unlikely. A substantial body of law tends to treat intentional torts, such as violent crimes, to be intervening acts that are not forseeable, perhaps even as a matter of law. Such an intervening act might well "cut off" the chain of proximate cause from prior conduct of a defendant.
While the abuse excuse might have (however unlikely) been a defense for those who actually did the shooting, had they lived, there is no law of which I am aware that would provide reasonable grounds for using abuse excuse as grounds in support of a plaintiff in a civil case to impute proximate cause to a vender of content for the intentional acts of a third party.
In other words, there may well be legal grounds that would, in themselves, preclude bringing the matter to trial, or admit judgment as a matter of law for the defendants. Even if it did survive summary judgment and motions to dismiss, and even if the tearful and sympathetic plaintiffs led a jury to find for them, the judge might well issue judgment for the defendants notwithstanding the verdict. Even were the judge too timid to intervene as she should in the face of a meaningful verdict, there could well be rock-solid grounds for appeal.
All that from basic tort law issues, even presuming that the first amendment does not, itself, preclude the cause of action entirely.
These people bringing the lawsuit are on the right track, they mailed John Carmack personally to demand that he personally prohibit any person under 17 from playing his game. He is a genius coder, he must be able to figure out a way to do it. Senseless auto-killing brainwashing ought only be reserved for those over 18
I have a personal pet theory of why school administrators and (some) parents are going apeshit about Columbine, getting kids booted for even mentioning guns, etc - That theory is that these parents / teachers / adminstrators know FULL WELL the kind of things that drive kids to shoot randomly, they know how bad it is, and they're scared shitless that their kid might get shot. (or hell, why stop with your classmates, might as well go for the office..)
That's why they want to crack down so hard, because it's something they can fix. The underlying issues are much harder. School shootings in Canada (on a smaller scale) have provoked national debates (on TV, even) about the nature of school bullying and what adminstrators can do about it. I saw no such coverage on CNN; the focus was on evil kids and black hearts.
..don't panic
As a Nebraskan, I wasn't terribly surprised to see the lawyer for this suit was named as "John DeCamp." Those of us in Nebraska have long experience with this man's erratic behavior, wild charges, publicity seeking and general fuzzy-headedness (just my opinion, of course). For example, do a Google search on "John DeCamp Nebraska." You'll get to read about a long series of unsubstantiated litigation claiming DeCamps' clients as victims of cultism and satanic abuse . . . and that's just for starters. Sigh.
"When I grow up, I'll be stable."
I don't by any means want to diminish the horrific nature of the acts at Columbine and other such places, but where has personal responsibility gone? It strikes me as amazing that the first thing people want to do is externalize the causes of these tragedies, to find scapegoats to blame for the actions of a misguided (and in some cases, truly ill IMHO) few.
... well, to EVERYTHING. It's really a shame.
On second thought, I guess it's not that amazing. It's just far simpler to point the finger of blame at others, rather than acknowledge that part of the problem might have been in the homes and family lives of the shooters.
(Preamble for below: I'm Canadian, and I live in the U.S. - have for some years now).
The American (it's primarily in the U.S. AFAIK and yes, I've travelled extensively off the north american continent) culture of victimization is an astounding thing. Personal responsibility takes a back seat to finger pointing and blame mongering. It's sad to see reasonable, mature adults, no matter how distraught they are, abdicating their responsibility as parents in order to blame others for the sad events that resulted largely from their home situations.
In the U.S. the media has helped entrench this culture, making it all right to blame external forces and people for everything from bad breath to
-drin
In America today, there is a common inability to admit that you got screwed over by circumstances beyond anyone's control. There always needs to be someone to blame, something to do, some way to "get back" at the people/person who caused your pain. That's not always possible. When there are suspects to be tried, compensatory damages to be collected from the wrongdoer we have our "justice", no matter the real benefit, at least we can say "somebody paid for what happened".
We are so used to it, this automatic satisfaction, we cannot begin to understand that things aren't always "fixable". That unlike the sitcoms we grew up on, not everything can be neatly wrapped up in a set period of time. When there is an absence of "justice", when there is no tit-for-tat, we freak out.
We have grown up believing hopelessness is not a white, middle class, suburban feeling. It is something felt by people half the world away, when we see them on the nightly news. Hopelessness is for people in some foreign-looking hellhole, not an upscale, midwestern community.
The parents in Littleton are trying to find something to fill the dark void in their life, the part of them that was ripped out by events beyond their...or really anyone's control. I have sympathy for their plight, but they should not continue on their quest to place blame where it doesn't belong. It's not easy to simply blame two people who are now dead, we can't get our ideal "justice"...but we have to realize and accept that we don't always get the satisfaction we want...or need. There will be no day in court, no explinations, no chance to scream at Eric and Dylan for the lives they ended.
There are far too many questions still lingering after two long years, and it seems we are nearly out of answers. No one will ever get to ask Why, to dig into the motivations of the killers, to get anything but the slightest hint of the thoughts behind the massacre.
Such is life.
With the inability to even begin to understand anything beyond what was seen in the hallways of Columbine on that afternoon, it is impossible and irresponsible to make assumptions about the deeper issues, the intangible aspects of what was going through their minds, what might of driven them to do what they did. Suing game publishers for billions of dollars is not justice, it does not punish anyone who was involved in any way, it does not bring back the dead, nor does it honor their memory. This is lashing out plain and simple. Lashing out against people who had no part in their troubles. Who didn't do anything, but who are simply convenent targets for rage, the rage of people without any answers, without any hope and who have a disabling inability to deal with the events in their life.
After all that has happened, you think people would have learned by now that no good comes from doing such things.
I implore the parents of the Columbine victims to stop this crusade...even if it suceeds there will be no tangible benefit...except the piece of mind that somebody paid.
I don't think we as a society can afford that. (Note: I strongly suggest people watch the film The Sweet Hereafter )
Remember that in America, everyone has identical access to redress of grievances. That means:
1] You can file a suit about anything or nothing.
2] If it IS about nothing, you'll be thrown out on your ear.
This is not a real lawsuit. It is not based on any law, statute, legal doctrine, or precident. The lawyer involved is simply using the legal system to try to make political waves.
In short: The Lawsuit Is A Troll Intended For the Media.
Slashdot bit, as did you. I'm sure a lot of radio talkshow hosts will be using it as a topic for their rants. This kind of pseudo-story is their bread and butter.
As a matter of fact, since millions of kids play these overly violent games everyday, we can now understand why millions of kids take guns to school and shoot millions of other, non-videogame-playing children and then kill themselves every day.
These people bringing the lawsuit are on the right track, they mailed John Carmack personally to demand that he personally prohibit any person under 17 from playing his game. He is a genius coder, he must be able to figure out a way to do it. Senseless auto-killing brainwashing ought only be reserved for those over 18.
Except for when he's not.
Even before science back up the claims of harm from smoking, it was a common fact that smoking was not good for you.
Common, except for the tobacco companies, who frequently trotted out their own experts to point out there was no proof that smoking caused $DISEASE. When it could be shown that the officers of the company knew that this was false, they became liable.
If Miller, Coors or Budweiser ran an ad saying "Have an extra beer before you drive home. There's no proof it'll make you crash" they'd be similarly liable.
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