I have logged in to post for the first time in years. Why haven't I logged in in years? BECAUSE of all of this crap.
There seems to be a contest by the maintainers of this site to illustrate as many ways as possible that Web 2.0 can be used to annoy users, and the horrendous misuse of AJAX on this website is culprit number one.
It should not take half a dozen clicks to see all the comments on a page. I used to come here for the comments, so hiding them is a large part of why I don't come here as often. Also, the current system stifles ACs, who have been a vital and essential part of the Slashdot's culture, good and bad.
A browser's back & forwards buttons should still have some utility and meaning on the site. If I want to read articles from yesterday or two days ago, hitting the back button should not stick me back at the front page to go through all the hassle of pulling those articles up and finding my place again.
If you don't want to do that for the whole site, then at least give an option of having a front page that works like an actual page instead of as some kid's first Hypercard stack.
I should not have to click on every single individual reply to a message to see each one. The use of fancy Javascript to pull up each comment is an example of form trumping functionality in the worst way.
Logging in on a page should take me TO THAT PAGE. Not to the front page. To the page I was on. I logged in FOR THAT PAGE and not because I was eager to go look at something that didn't capture my interest. Yet another example of how the people who maintain Slashcode don't even pay lip service to concepts of workflow.
The site should work without Javascript for security conscious users and those on slower devices. (Yes that includes your ad network if you want me to see ads, 'cause I'm not turning on any more Javascript than the minimum I need to use the site. Tough shit.)
I don't want Video. It's slow and time-wasting, and it doesn't play nicely with viewing Slashdot at work. You have to devote full attention to it, and you can't really enjoy it at your own pace.
If you want to put Facebook and other social network crap on the site, give an option to disable it. I have no use for it, and it's just wasted screen real estate as far as I'm concerned.
In short, give me back Slashdot from 5 years ago when the site was actually usable.
Until then, I'm logging back out and to hell with you all.
Actually, it does. If you're replenishing the oil using food sources from above ground, there'd be a minimal impact on global warming. The carbon would come from the atmosphere and go back.
Except that we're currently doing our dead level best to burn hundreds of million years of accumulated oil in a few scant centuries.
Keep in mind that our current worrisome CO2 problems are with CO2 going about 400 ppm. The Earth's atmosphere has only sunk to those low levels of CO2 needed to sustain the climate we survive on in the Neogene period when it was at 280 ppm in pre-industrial times. Kick back 500 million years to the Cambrian period, and you're looking at 4500 ppm and sea levels 200 m over modern day levels. If we only hit a mere 500 ppm, we're looking at CO2 levels not seen since the Paleogene over 20 million years ago.
Unless we can find a way to sequester carbon millions of times faster than it naturally turns into oil, we're not going to make it up by wasting cropland on throwing food down a hole.
I look at mine. I will not sacrifice my QOL for others.
Unless you live in a shed in the woods, you may find that your quality of life is somehow tied into that of the people in your community and the world around you. It's this little thing known as "competition for resources" as well as the fact that 99% of what you own is probably made by someone else with their own life circumstances.
Oh, and when everyone in the world is thinking the same way you do, we're going to rapidly discover that the Earth can't support 6 billion people living at Western standards of living. Then no one gets a decent quality of life.
The world is going to be very different when just China and India have reached our standards of living.
travel to and from the surface would take a LOT more time than an equal distance travelled on the surface
This one is actually less likely to be true. Remember that travel on the surface involves the curvature of the Earth. Travel through the Earth can be done in relatively straight lines!
The poster was noting that vertical travel is typically slower than horizontal travel thanks to working against gravity both to go up and to avoid going out of control and costly braking when going down.
You are unlikely to travel vertical distances sufficient to make an equivalent horizontal distance lose noticeable efficiency due to the curvature of the Earth, considering that it's only roughly a deviation of about 8 inches per mile. The crust is about 30 miles thick at its thickest, so we're talking deviation of about 20 feet in 30 miles of horizontal travel at most, and we're not putting homes and workplaces right at the mantle.
Please get a more perspective about the scales things operate at.
It's an in-joke from the forums for the game Dwarf Fortress.
"Clowns" are the new obfuscating slang for the things that people used to call "hidden fun stuff" in previous versions of the game. I will spoil no more beyond this point and leave you to Google the rest, which you should be able to find with those clues. It's considered a spoiler in the game because it's very easy to play the game for a very long time without ever finding this feature until you become really dedicated to certain kinds of exploration.
How about that the IAU definition excludes "extrasolar planets" from being planets, on account of them not orbiting the sun.
Technically, the IAU definition only covers the distinction between bodies in our solar system and says absolutely nothing about bodies outside of it. This is because there is currently no way for us to determine whether or not any extrasolar planet clears its neighborhood (though we can probably guess for most of the Jupiter-sized ones).
It doesn't say that these bodies aren't planets. If just says that when defining bodies within our Solar System, "planets," "dwarf planets," and "small Solar system bodies" mean X, Y, and Z. It seems a practical compromise to avoid quibbling over questions we largely can't answer.
Also, saying that "dwarf planets" are not a subcategory of the general category "planets" is just fucking stupid.
Well, I would have preferred a different term to draw a greater distinction, but it does capture the fact that dwarf planets have part of the qualifications to be a planet: being large enough for their own gravity to keep them rounded.
Really it's the other way around in my mind since planets are just dwarf planets that are big enough to do something extra.
Oh, of course all that matters in the end for weight loss alone is calorie counting. But the problem in dieting is more about learning proper self-control, and eating a lot of sugary junk food is going to leave you with massive cravings all day. If you've got the willpower to lose weight in spite of that, then more power to you. Most people don't, though, and I wonder how long his diet is sustainable. A proper diet is a life-long decision -- not just something to do and then abandon one you reach a target number.
The other issue is that most diets have a secondary goal of improving your health overall. I could theoretically lose weight eating nothing but bacon strips and a multivitamin, but I don't think my heart would do well after a few months or years of doing this. I'd love to see what his lipid profile is like after such a diet.
So, in other words, the question is not which one is bigger - Eris or Pluto, but which one is denser - Eris or the astronomers?
Why the insults? Why are people so emotionally attached to the old order in which the term "planet" didn't have a solid, scientific definition which included Pluto (but in which kids didn't learn about similar bodies like Ceres) that they are willing to lash out at astronomers for attempting to put some kind of reason and order into the system?
I honestly can't think of any better demonstration of why humans should never achieve immortality. Look at how attached people are as minor of a belief that they were taught in childhood as whether or not Pluto is a planet. It's like the whole "debate" is a microcosm of how irrationally attached some people become to resisting change in their understanding of the world.
And people wonder why politics is so entrenched and partisan. If people can't adapt over Pluto just think of how stuck they are on the things that actually matter.
Ask just about anyone geeky and my age,, and they'll telll you so: "yes, Pluto is a Fucking Planet, now stop trying to change things".
What does being geeky have to do with being old and too set in your ways to listen to reason?
Give us an argument why the IAU's definitions of a planet and of a dwarf planet are unreasonable. Please avoid any Appeal to Tradition. Also, can you craft a definition of a planet that covers Pluto but not Eris and Ceres other than "just what we used to arbitrarily call a planet?"
Note that not allowing a child directly as defendant or plaintiff does not mean there is no accountability of any kind. The parents remain accountable to society and the child to the parent.
And again, ultimately, the parents remain the ones effectively accountable when the child is sued. Six of one, half a dozen of the other.
The more difficult case is the mentally disabled adult. I can more easily envision problematic situations there than I can envision a solution.
It's terribly problematic. Mentally ill defendants have a nasty tendency of trying to run their own defense and failing horribly because of the things they simply don't understand and aren't willing to listen and learn about the legal system. However, their attorneys have to listen to them in some disastrous situations, and courts generally can't deny a person the right to proceed pro se, though most appoint an advisory attorney (in criminal cases). Even worse, they may act in ways that turn the jury against them.
This would be a huge problem for children if they were allowed to run their own defense, and this is why courts require a legal guardian to manage the case for them. Children at least have the benefit of having someone more level and sensible calling the shots when sued. The mentally ill usually do not.
It's a real shame for people to go killing perfectly nice strawmen that way.
It's not a strawman. You just don't understand the elements of relevant tort law.
There's a world of difference between a 4 year old's concept of "bad" and killing a woman. There's an even wider gulf between a parent's admonition to be careful and a 4 year old actually understanding that careening around on a trike not watching where you're going can cause you to run in to an 89 year old woman causing her a serious injury (that is, one where an ambulance shows up) eventually culminating in death. Death forever and ever, not death for a few weeks (many 4 year olds are a bit fuzzy on permanence).
A) The woman didn't die due to the accident. She died of unrelated causes, though the article we got didn't make that clear at all. However, that doesn't mean that they family can't sue over the costs of her broken hip.
B) The law does not require that you intend the consequences of your actions -- only that you are culpable for their cause. In the case of an intentional battery tort, all that's required is that you deliberately touched the victim in a way you knew wouldn't be welcome. In the case of negligence, all that's required is that your actions did not meet and appropriate standard of care.
Either way, a 4 year old should know not to run into people with a bike because it could hurt them. It doesn't matter whether or not the child could have foreseen the possibility of death because even a fully healthy and vigorous person would be injured by having a bike hit them. (Remember that even giving someone a skinned knee is something that you could legally sue over, though no one does because you won't win enough in damages to cover legal costs. Oh yeah, and it's pretty petty too.)
The "thin skull rule" does not allow you to escape responsibility for an injury just because it's worse than you could have expected so long as you'd be responsible for what you could have expected.
I'm considerably more skeptical of the legal system's ability to handle the obvious than you. After all, David Copperfield was once sued for misappropriation of divine power by a plaintiff claiming to be God and the legal system apparently found itself powerless to stop the almighty until Copperfield spent $5000 to have the reply "nonsense" translated into terms the court could understand and accept.
That is an odd-ball case, but you're grossly mischaracterizing the court's role here. The common law system is an adversarial system. Judges cannot unilaterally dismiss a case for being utterly without merit without any answer from the defendant. End of story.
If the legal system does not understand that "peer" actually means something beyond "other people", it is not *I* who lack sophistication.
That's cute. However, I stand firmly in favor of the jury as an equalizer and against the notion of special juries for special people. Also, where do you draw the line and allow adults to serve on a jury? 5? 6? 7? 13? 16? Does the criminal or tortious act have any bearing?
Finally, I apparently shouldn't have taken your word for it that the plaintiff had tried and failed suing the parents already. You now say that this is all part of one action. If so, then any comment I made contingent on this being a second suit would naturally be void.
What I said was fully accurate. They already tried to sue the parents -- as part of the same action. I'm sorry that I assumed that you understood that multiple causes of action would be filed at the same time when addressed your claim that they should have tried to sue the parents for negligence (as if they hadn't).
Agreed, no 6 year old is at all likely to manage that, even with significant adult guidance (short of the adult actually taking over). That's my point! Unless the court is prepared to simplify itself down to a child's level, it has no business having a child as either plaintiff or defendant directly.
So then, should we refuse to hold accountable anyone not capable of handling the legal system pro se? Does that apply to just dumb people too?
Every last one of them! The dividing line is a bit fuzzy, but it's also several years above 4.Thus it's safe to say no 4 year old, not even one who's nearly 5.
I expect the judge to take these things as fact just like I expect the judge to assume (in other cases) that the plaintiff did not, in fact alter gravity by force of will, make the sun go out using a lightswitch, or turn the plaintiff into a newt (even temporarily).
You act as if your particular beliefs on child psychology are as easily recognized as gravity and causality without an expert's opinion. If this were so, then the legal system would have recognized it ages ago. Instead, these are relatively modern revelations that often jar with what many of us have experienced either as parents or as people with good enough memories of our childhoods.
I'm sorry, but you act like it's obvious that a 4 year old can't understand that running into someone with a bike would be bad, and that jars with the common experience of people. For all I know, you might be right. The world is stranger than fiction sometimes. But that isn't something that can be taken at face value without an actual examination of the merits of the claims.
The first wasn't actually a fiction, but this would be. Does this mean that the jury must be composed of children (since adults are not peers to a child)? Or will jury of one's peers also be a fiction?
My apologies. I thought I was speaking to someone slightly sophisticated about the law. I have since been disabused of this notion.
A jury of one's peers does not mean that you get to have people exactly like you. All it guarantees is that you will be judged by your community. It does not guarantee that they will all be of the same race, gender, age, or anything else. If just means that you'll be judged by a selection of laymen. (Usually, anyway. I do remember my state's Attorney General getting stuck with jury duty a couple of years ago. Kind of hilarious he wasn't struck from the pool.)
Likewise, that the nominal defendant can even understand the proceedings? (or even be there, court can take longer than a 6 year old can sit quietly). I would say permitting all of that fiction in a court dedicated to getting to the truth is by far the more activist position.
Courts handle mentally incapacitated defendants, plaintiffs, and witnesses all the time. Part of the job of an attorney is to help their client be represented, but that doesn't require a client to understand everything. Unfortunately. Especially in matters where discretion on an attorney's actions are up to said client, and they don't get it.
Anyway, in the case of a child, the law allows that the parents be the ones in charge of directing the attorney in their role as guardian.
Taking your word for it that they already tried (and failed) suing the parents, this looks a lot like double jeopardy. You don't get to sue people over and over for the same incident trying out a new theory of liability each time until you win. And there's the danger of the legal fiction.
*sigh*
First, double jeopardy doesn't apply to civil actions. Wrong term.
Second, they aren't suing over and over again. They're advancing multiple alternative theories of liability at the same time. (e.g. Claiming that the incident was either negligence by the parents, negligence by the child, or battery by the child, or multiple of the above.) That's the way you have to do things because courts won't let you go back and take a second bite at the apple, so instead, you get to test them all at once in one trial.
See collateral estoppel and res judicata for more info.
(I mean, isn't that completely obvious to anyone -- just like the whole child psychology thing?:-))
See my other reply to you for commentary on the rest of your post, but there was something new here.
As a side note, if we're going to allow adults to sue 6 year olds, doesn't basic fairness suggest we must allow 6 year olds to sue adults as well (perhaps even pro se)? I can just see a court proceeding where the jury is asked to determine if, in fact, Mr. Johnson is a doodie-head.
They can, though I've never seen a case with a child pro se plaintiff before. (Man, I wish I had Westlaw access still...) However, I seriously doubt that any child will be able to navigate the rules of civil procedure, and intelligently plead a complaint, handle discovery, and rebuff a motion for summary judgment in favor of the defendant to make it all the way to a jury. Any kid that does is going to be pretty freaking impressive.
Plus, I'm pretty sure that being a doodie-head fails to state a claim upon which relief may be granted. At least in my jurisdiction.:-)
It's not a matter of a legal rule, it's a matter of child development. Four year olds are known for a fact not to be capable of the level of understanding necessary to be responsible for their own actions at all.
All four year olds? Until their fifth birthday exactly? And to what degree? Where exactly do you draw the age line without any need for an evidentiary hearing to resolve any questions of fact?
What do you expect the judge to do? This is a motion to dismiss, which means that a complaint fails to state a claim for which there is any possible remedy at law (to simplify a bit) even with all questions of fact are assumed to be in the plaintiff's favor. All the things you've said are excellent arguments that the child cannot be negligent when the question is actually argued and can be entered into the record via expert testimony, but if you expect the judge to simply take these arguments as fact without binding precedent to demand it, then you are asking a judge to grossly overstep his bounds and rule on fiat instead of rule of law.
No reasonable adult would expect a 6 year old to understand the court process and it's ramifications adequately for there to be meaningful due process.
That's not actually necessary for due process so long as the child has adequate representation to manage these issues for him or her.
The law already has an accommodation for all of that, you sue the parents for failure to prevent the children from committing the act in question.
Well, this is essentially another legal fiction to resolve the same question since it's the parents footing the bill anyway. In the case, the judge held that the parents can't be sued directly for negligence for their child's acts unless they encouraged the child's acts. Keep in mind that civil tort law is far more focused on whether or not the victim deserves compensation and from who than whether or not the defendant is culpable for some evil act. Civil liability does not inherently imply that you did something inherently wrong, just that you're responsible for loss.
Suing the child is in effect just an alternate way of suing the parents when the parents did not directly contribute to the tortious act.
Here in the UK it's possible to prosecute a criminal action without the involvement of the crown prosecution service [...] Is this not possible in the US?
Mostly no. In the US, we moved away from private prosecutions to entirely public prosecutions around the 19th century. The process is now almost entirely removed from consideration of the victim as opposed to society as a whole, which has led in recent decades to a large pushback via victim's rights legislation.
Apparently though, you can still do this in Virginia at least, but I have no idea how this works. (I only found this out by double checking myself with a search.) Some other states allow the prosecutor's office to "delegate" to a private prosecutor, but I also don't know how this works. It's very unusual at least.
At any rate, the blog covers New York news, and I doubt that New York would be a state which would retain rules on the books for private prosecutors. New York is a former Dutch colony, and the rest of America got the entire idea of public prosecutors from those colonies. Then again, I am not a lawyer, and I don't live in New York, so I may not be qualified to comment.
They really don't have any standards for art anymore, do they?
Not since they took the Dadaists seriously, no.
I tend to think of modern art as a sport akin to social engineering. When you think of it that way, it stays annoying but at least you can respect some of the skills involved, unlike those used in the actual work itself.
Note: The article seems to imply that death resulted from the injury. This is not the case. She died for unrelated reasons. The case is purely about a non-death injury and can still go forward.
To have a certain guilt put upon the shoulders of this 6-year old boy that he just about killed a person will do wonders, I'm sure!
What, so the kid should only feel responsible for their own actions after a judge decides so? What a wonderful message to send to people everywhere. You have no responsibility for your acts unless someone is allowed to sue to make you feel guilty for them.
(Though, according to the person you were responding the article is misleading in implying that the injury caused death. The point remains.)
Actually, this is about poor judges, not lawyers. The law is pretty clear on this. They are not liable. They are minors. The plaintiffs, on the other hand, do have every right to sue their parents. This is yet another great story which typifies just how the US court system is really completely broken.
Personally, I suspect that an actual working judge probably has a slightly better grasp of New York state law than you do. It's very well established that minors can be sued, and the parents are generally responsible for the costs of their tortuous acts. Whether a child of age 4 can be sued varies from state to state, and New York apparently has no bright-line rule on the matter, though it does offer a reduced standard of care to that of a reasonable child of her age in negligence cases.
Methinks the judge and the lawyers for both sides did to a little research on this.
Generally speaking, not true. It may be just that I live in Oregon which has a pretty sedate and relaxed state bar, but most lawyers I met are generally decent people who believe in their clients. It's the few that grab media attention that make a bad name -- just like almost any other profession.
Plus, you try working in a profession that has legally-binding, elevated ethics standards of honesty, loyalty, and diligence and see how far you get.
In the end, that's all they're doing anyway. The kid isn't going to be financially liable for her acts. It's the parents who will be. Remember that "liability" in a civil case isn't really about moral right and wrong but about whether or not the victim deserves to be compensated for their injuries and by whom. Doctrines of vicarious liability are mostly legal fictions to determine whether or not the latter cause is served more than the former.
People get upset about civil liability when they think of it as, "Who did wrong?" more than, "Who should have to pay for this?" Sometimes the two are distinct, as in this case.
Slashdot Mirror
ALL OF THE ABOVE.
I have logged in to post for the first time in years. Why haven't I logged in in years? BECAUSE of all of this crap.
There seems to be a contest by the maintainers of this site to illustrate as many ways as possible that Web 2.0 can be used to annoy users, and the horrendous misuse of AJAX on this website is culprit number one.
In short, give me back Slashdot from 5 years ago when the site was actually usable.
Until then, I'm logging back out and to hell with you all.
Thanks. Now that you've named it, it has a hold on our world. Retroactively.
Actually, it does. If you're replenishing the oil using food sources from above ground, there'd be a minimal impact on global warming. The carbon would come from the atmosphere and go back.
Except that we're currently doing our dead level best to burn hundreds of million years of accumulated oil in a few scant centuries.
Keep in mind that our current worrisome CO2 problems are with CO2 going about 400 ppm. The Earth's atmosphere has only sunk to those low levels of CO2 needed to sustain the climate we survive on in the Neogene period when it was at 280 ppm in pre-industrial times. Kick back 500 million years to the Cambrian period, and you're looking at 4500 ppm and sea levels 200 m over modern day levels. If we only hit a mere 500 ppm, we're looking at CO2 levels not seen since the Paleogene over 20 million years ago.
Unless we can find a way to sequester carbon millions of times faster than it naturally turns into oil, we're not going to make it up by wasting cropland on throwing food down a hole.
To die, first a thing must live. Therefore, death can not be more ubiquitous than life.
Tell that to disco.
I look at mine. I will not sacrifice my QOL for others.
Unless you live in a shed in the woods, you may find that your quality of life is somehow tied into that of the people in your community and the world around you. It's this little thing known as "competition for resources" as well as the fact that 99% of what you own is probably made by someone else with their own life circumstances.
Oh, and when everyone in the world is thinking the same way you do, we're going to rapidly discover that the Earth can't support 6 billion people living at Western standards of living. Then no one gets a decent quality of life.
The world is going to be very different when just China and India have reached our standards of living.
travel to and from the surface would take a LOT more time than an equal distance travelled on the surface
This one is actually less likely to be true. Remember that travel on the surface involves the curvature of the Earth. Travel through the Earth can be done in relatively straight lines!
The poster was noting that vertical travel is typically slower than horizontal travel thanks to working against gravity both to go up and to avoid going out of control and costly braking when going down.
You are unlikely to travel vertical distances sufficient to make an equivalent horizontal distance lose noticeable efficiency due to the curvature of the Earth, considering that it's only roughly a deviation of about 8 inches per mile. The crust is about 30 miles thick at its thickest, so we're talking deviation of about 20 feet in 30 miles of horizontal travel at most, and we're not putting homes and workplaces right at the mantle.
Please get a more perspective about the scales things operate at.
It's an in-joke from the forums for the game Dwarf Fortress.
"Clowns" are the new obfuscating slang for the things that people used to call "hidden fun stuff" in previous versions of the game. I will spoil no more beyond this point and leave you to Google the rest, which you should be able to find with those clues. It's considered a spoiler in the game because it's very easy to play the game for a very long time without ever finding this feature until you become really dedicated to certain kinds of exploration.
How about that the IAU definition excludes "extrasolar planets" from being planets, on account of them not orbiting the sun.
Technically, the IAU definition only covers the distinction between bodies in our solar system and says absolutely nothing about bodies outside of it. This is because there is currently no way for us to determine whether or not any extrasolar planet clears its neighborhood (though we can probably guess for most of the Jupiter-sized ones).
It doesn't say that these bodies aren't planets. If just says that when defining bodies within our Solar System, "planets," "dwarf planets," and "small Solar system bodies" mean X, Y, and Z. It seems a practical compromise to avoid quibbling over questions we largely can't answer.
Also, saying that "dwarf planets" are not a subcategory of the general category "planets" is just fucking stupid.
Well, I would have preferred a different term to draw a greater distinction, but it does capture the fact that dwarf planets have part of the qualifications to be a planet: being large enough for their own gravity to keep them rounded.
Really it's the other way around in my mind since planets are just dwarf planets that are big enough to do something extra.
Oh, of course all that matters in the end for weight loss alone is calorie counting. But the problem in dieting is more about learning proper self-control, and eating a lot of sugary junk food is going to leave you with massive cravings all day. If you've got the willpower to lose weight in spite of that, then more power to you. Most people don't, though, and I wonder how long his diet is sustainable. A proper diet is a life-long decision -- not just something to do and then abandon one you reach a target number.
The other issue is that most diets have a secondary goal of improving your health overall. I could theoretically lose weight eating nothing but bacon strips and a multivitamin, but I don't think my heart would do well after a few months or years of doing this. I'd love to see what his lipid profile is like after such a diet.
So, in other words, the question is not which one is bigger - Eris or Pluto, but which one is denser - Eris or the astronomers?
Why the insults? Why are people so emotionally attached to the old order in which the term "planet" didn't have a solid, scientific definition which included Pluto (but in which kids didn't learn about similar bodies like Ceres) that they are willing to lash out at astronomers for attempting to put some kind of reason and order into the system?
I honestly can't think of any better demonstration of why humans should never achieve immortality. Look at how attached people are as minor of a belief that they were taught in childhood as whether or not Pluto is a planet. It's like the whole "debate" is a microcosm of how irrationally attached some people become to resisting change in their understanding of the world.
And people wonder why politics is so entrenched and partisan. If people can't adapt over Pluto just think of how stuck they are on the things that actually matter.
Ask just about anyone geeky and my age,, and they'll telll you so: "yes, Pluto is a Fucking Planet, now stop trying to change things".
What does being geeky have to do with being old and too set in your ways to listen to reason?
Give us an argument why the IAU's definitions of a planet and of a dwarf planet are unreasonable. Please avoid any Appeal to Tradition. Also, can you craft a definition of a planet that covers Pluto but not Eris and Ceres other than "just what we used to arbitrarily call a planet?"
Note that not allowing a child directly as defendant or plaintiff does not mean there is no accountability of any kind. The parents remain accountable to society and the child to the parent.
And again, ultimately, the parents remain the ones effectively accountable when the child is sued. Six of one, half a dozen of the other.
The more difficult case is the mentally disabled adult. I can more easily envision problematic situations there than I can envision a solution.
It's terribly problematic. Mentally ill defendants have a nasty tendency of trying to run their own defense and failing horribly because of the things they simply don't understand and aren't willing to listen and learn about the legal system. However, their attorneys have to listen to them in some disastrous situations, and courts generally can't deny a person the right to proceed pro se, though most appoint an advisory attorney (in criminal cases). Even worse, they may act in ways that turn the jury against them.
This would be a huge problem for children if they were allowed to run their own defense, and this is why courts require a legal guardian to manage the case for them. Children at least have the benefit of having someone more level and sensible calling the shots when sued. The mentally ill usually do not.
It's a real shame for people to go killing perfectly nice strawmen that way.
It's not a strawman. You just don't understand the elements of relevant tort law.
There's a world of difference between a 4 year old's concept of "bad" and killing a woman. There's an even wider gulf between a parent's admonition to be careful and a 4 year old actually understanding that careening around on a trike not watching where you're going can cause you to run in to an 89 year old woman causing her a serious injury (that is, one where an ambulance shows up) eventually culminating in death. Death forever and ever, not death for a few weeks (many 4 year olds are a bit fuzzy on permanence).
A) The woman didn't die due to the accident. She died of unrelated causes, though the article we got didn't make that clear at all. However, that doesn't mean that they family can't sue over the costs of her broken hip.
B) The law does not require that you intend the consequences of your actions -- only that you are culpable for their cause. In the case of an intentional battery tort, all that's required is that you deliberately touched the victim in a way you knew wouldn't be welcome. In the case of negligence, all that's required is that your actions did not meet and appropriate standard of care.
Either way, a 4 year old should know not to run into people with a bike because it could hurt them. It doesn't matter whether or not the child could have foreseen the possibility of death because even a fully healthy and vigorous person would be injured by having a bike hit them. (Remember that even giving someone a skinned knee is something that you could legally sue over, though no one does because you won't win enough in damages to cover legal costs. Oh yeah, and it's pretty petty too.)
The "thin skull rule" does not allow you to escape responsibility for an injury just because it's worse than you could have expected so long as you'd be responsible for what you could have expected.
I'm considerably more skeptical of the legal system's ability to handle the obvious than you. After all, David Copperfield was once sued for misappropriation of divine power by a plaintiff claiming to be God and the legal system apparently found itself powerless to stop the almighty until Copperfield spent $5000 to have the reply "nonsense" translated into terms the court could understand and accept.
That is an odd-ball case, but you're grossly mischaracterizing the court's role here. The common law system is an adversarial system. Judges cannot unilaterally dismiss a case for being utterly without merit without any answer from the defendant. End of story.
If the legal system does not understand that "peer" actually means something beyond "other people", it is not *I* who lack sophistication.
That's cute. However, I stand firmly in favor of the jury as an equalizer and against the notion of special juries for special people. Also, where do you draw the line and allow adults to serve on a jury? 5? 6? 7? 13? 16? Does the criminal or tortious act have any bearing?
Finally, I apparently shouldn't have taken your word for it that the plaintiff had tried and failed suing the parents already. You now say that this is all part of one action. If so, then any comment I made contingent on this being a second suit would naturally be void.
What I said was fully accurate. They already tried to sue the parents -- as part of the same action. I'm sorry that I assumed that you understood that multiple causes of action would be filed at the same time when addressed your claim that they should have tried to sue the parents for negligence (as if they hadn't).
Agreed, no 6 year old is at all likely to manage that, even with significant adult guidance (short of the adult actually taking over). That's my point! Unless the court is prepared to simplify itself down to a child's level, it has no business having a child as either plaintiff or defendant directly.
So then, should we refuse to hold accountable anyone not capable of handling the legal system pro se? Does that apply to just dumb people too?
Every last one of them! The dividing line is a bit fuzzy, but it's also several years above 4.Thus it's safe to say no 4 year old, not even one who's nearly 5.
I expect the judge to take these things as fact just like I expect the judge to assume (in other cases) that the plaintiff did not, in fact alter gravity by force of will, make the sun go out using a lightswitch, or turn the plaintiff into a newt (even temporarily).
You act as if your particular beliefs on child psychology are as easily recognized as gravity and causality without an expert's opinion. If this were so, then the legal system would have recognized it ages ago. Instead, these are relatively modern revelations that often jar with what many of us have experienced either as parents or as people with good enough memories of our childhoods.
I'm sorry, but you act like it's obvious that a 4 year old can't understand that running into someone with a bike would be bad, and that jars with the common experience of people. For all I know, you might be right. The world is stranger than fiction sometimes. But that isn't something that can be taken at face value without an actual examination of the merits of the claims.
The first wasn't actually a fiction, but this would be. Does this mean that the jury must be composed of children (since adults are not peers to a child)? Or will jury of one's peers also be a fiction?
My apologies. I thought I was speaking to someone slightly sophisticated about the law. I have since been disabused of this notion.
A jury of one's peers does not mean that you get to have people exactly like you. All it guarantees is that you will be judged by your community. It does not guarantee that they will all be of the same race, gender, age, or anything else. If just means that you'll be judged by a selection of laymen. (Usually, anyway. I do remember my state's Attorney General getting stuck with jury duty a couple of years ago. Kind of hilarious he wasn't struck from the pool.)
Likewise, that the nominal defendant can even understand the proceedings? (or even be there, court can take longer than a 6 year old can sit quietly). I would say permitting all of that fiction in a court dedicated to getting to the truth is by far the more activist position.
Courts handle mentally incapacitated defendants, plaintiffs, and witnesses all the time. Part of the job of an attorney is to help their client be represented, but that doesn't require a client to understand everything. Unfortunately. Especially in matters where discretion on an attorney's actions are up to said client, and they don't get it.
Anyway, in the case of a child, the law allows that the parents be the ones in charge of directing the attorney in their role as guardian.
Taking your word for it that they already tried (and failed) suing the parents, this looks a lot like double jeopardy. You don't get to sue people over and over for the same incident trying out a new theory of liability each time until you win. And there's the danger of the legal fiction.
*sigh*
First, double jeopardy doesn't apply to civil actions. Wrong term.
Second, they aren't suing over and over again. They're advancing multiple alternative theories of liability at the same time. (e.g. Claiming that the incident was either negligence by the parents, negligence by the child, or battery by the child, or multiple of the above.) That's the way you have to do things because courts won't let you go back and take a second bite at the apple, so instead, you get to test them all at once in one trial.
See collateral estoppel and res judicata for more info.
(I mean, isn't that completely obvious to anyone -- just like the whole child psychology thing? :-))
See my other reply to you for commentary on the rest of your post, but there was something new here.
As a side note, if we're going to allow adults to sue 6 year olds, doesn't basic fairness suggest we must allow 6 year olds to sue adults as well (perhaps even pro se)? I can just see a court proceeding where the jury is asked to determine if, in fact, Mr. Johnson is a doodie-head.
They can, though I've never seen a case with a child pro se plaintiff before. (Man, I wish I had Westlaw access still...) However, I seriously doubt that any child will be able to navigate the rules of civil procedure, and intelligently plead a complaint, handle discovery, and rebuff a motion for summary judgment in favor of the defendant to make it all the way to a jury. Any kid that does is going to be pretty freaking impressive.
Plus, I'm pretty sure that being a doodie-head fails to state a claim upon which relief may be granted. At least in my jurisdiction. :-)
It's not a matter of a legal rule, it's a matter of child development. Four year olds are known for a fact not to be capable of the level of understanding necessary to be responsible for their own actions at all.
All four year olds? Until their fifth birthday exactly? And to what degree? Where exactly do you draw the age line without any need for an evidentiary hearing to resolve any questions of fact?
What do you expect the judge to do? This is a motion to dismiss, which means that a complaint fails to state a claim for which there is any possible remedy at law (to simplify a bit) even with all questions of fact are assumed to be in the plaintiff's favor. All the things you've said are excellent arguments that the child cannot be negligent when the question is actually argued and can be entered into the record via expert testimony, but if you expect the judge to simply take these arguments as fact without binding precedent to demand it, then you are asking a judge to grossly overstep his bounds and rule on fiat instead of rule of law.
No reasonable adult would expect a 6 year old to understand the court process and it's ramifications adequately for there to be meaningful due process.
That's not actually necessary for due process so long as the child has adequate representation to manage these issues for him or her.
The law already has an accommodation for all of that, you sue the parents for failure to prevent the children from committing the act in question.
Well, this is essentially another legal fiction to resolve the same question since it's the parents footing the bill anyway. In the case, the judge held that the parents can't be sued directly for negligence for their child's acts unless they encouraged the child's acts. Keep in mind that civil tort law is far more focused on whether or not the victim deserves compensation and from who than whether or not the defendant is culpable for some evil act. Civil liability does not inherently imply that you did something inherently wrong, just that you're responsible for loss.
Suing the child is in effect just an alternate way of suing the parents when the parents did not directly contribute to the tortious act.
Here in the UK it's possible to prosecute a criminal action without the involvement of the crown prosecution service [...] Is this not possible in the US?
Mostly no. In the US, we moved away from private prosecutions to entirely public prosecutions around the 19th century. The process is now almost entirely removed from consideration of the victim as opposed to society as a whole, which has led in recent decades to a large pushback via victim's rights legislation.
Apparently though, you can still do this in Virginia at least, but I have no idea how this works. (I only found this out by double checking myself with a search.) Some other states allow the prosecutor's office to "delegate" to a private prosecutor, but I also don't know how this works. It's very unusual at least.
At any rate, the blog covers New York news, and I doubt that New York would be a state which would retain rules on the books for private prosecutors. New York is a former Dutch colony, and the rest of America got the entire idea of public prosecutors from those colonies. Then again, I am not a lawyer, and I don't live in New York, so I may not be qualified to comment.
They really don't have any standards for art anymore, do they?
Not since they took the Dadaists seriously, no.
I tend to think of modern art as a sport akin to social engineering. When you think of it that way, it stays annoying but at least you can respect some of the skills involved, unlike those used in the actual work itself.
Never mind. It seems that her death is completely unrelated to the injury and not at controversy in the case.
Note: The article seems to imply that death resulted from the injury. This is not the case. She died for unrelated reasons. The case is purely about a non-death injury and can still go forward.
To have a certain guilt put upon the shoulders of this 6-year old boy that he just about killed a person will do wonders, I'm sure!
What, so the kid should only feel responsible for their own actions after a judge decides so? What a wonderful message to send to people everywhere. You have no responsibility for your acts unless someone is allowed to sue to make you feel guilty for them.
(Though, according to the person you were responding the article is misleading in implying that the injury caused death. The point remains.)
Actually, this is about poor judges, not lawyers. The law is pretty clear on this. They are not liable. They are minors. The plaintiffs, on the other hand, do have every right to sue their parents. This is yet another great story which typifies just how the US court system is really completely broken.
Personally, I suspect that an actual working judge probably has a slightly better grasp of New York state law than you do. It's very well established that minors can be sued, and the parents are generally responsible for the costs of their tortuous acts. Whether a child of age 4 can be sued varies from state to state, and New York apparently has no bright-line rule on the matter, though it does offer a reduced standard of care to that of a reasonable child of her age in negligence cases.
Methinks the judge and the lawyers for both sides did to a little research on this.
Generally speaking, not true. It may be just that I live in Oregon which has a pretty sedate and relaxed state bar, but most lawyers I met are generally decent people who believe in their clients. It's the few that grab media attention that make a bad name -- just like almost any other profession.
Plus, you try working in a profession that has legally-binding, elevated ethics standards of honesty, loyalty, and diligence and see how far you get.
In the end, that's all they're doing anyway. The kid isn't going to be financially liable for her acts. It's the parents who will be. Remember that "liability" in a civil case isn't really about moral right and wrong but about whether or not the victim deserves to be compensated for their injuries and by whom. Doctrines of vicarious liability are mostly legal fictions to determine whether or not the latter cause is served more than the former.
People get upset about civil liability when they think of it as, "Who did wrong?" more than, "Who should have to pay for this?" Sometimes the two are distinct, as in this case.