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New York Judge Rules 6-Year-Old Can Be Sued
suraj.sun sends this snippet from Reuters:
"A girl can be sued over accusations she ran over an elderly woman with her training bicycle when she was 4 years old, a New York Supreme Court justice has ruled. The ruling by King's County Supreme Court Justice Paul Wooten stems from an incident in April 2009 when Juliet Breitman and Jacob Kohn, both aged four, struck an 87-year-old pedestrian, Claire Menagh, with their training bikes. Menagh underwent surgery for a fractured hip and died three months later. In a ruling made public late Thursday, the judge dismissed arguments by Breitman's lawyer that the case should be dismissed because of her young age. He ruled that she is old enough to be sued and the case can proceed."
>Is this the problem with the lawyers, or is this a problem with the judge?
It might be a form of protest. The judge has just brought it to a national spotlight that the law allows (and maybe requires) him to permit a suit to go forward against a six year old for a liability incurred at age four.
The judge knows damn well it won't get past the first hearing, but instead of sweeping the real issue under the rug, he has made it so that it *cannot* be ignored.
I don't think this judge is insane or inhuman as he's been made out to be. I think this might have been a stroke of genius that will end up with the insane laws being changed.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
We Europeans tend to forget that the US is massive. It's twice the size of the entire EU, though only has 3/5 of the population. Population wise it's comparible to the Eurozone countries.
The major difference is that the culture seems to be based around 'city states' more than 'countries' as it is in the Eurozone..... your average Texan is as close to someone from New York as a Finn is to a Greek.