Racist tells superhero he'd rather die than be saved by black guy; super shrugs & lets him. Okay?

In My Humble Opinion
1

The slacktivist superbeing from this old thread of mine–let’s call him Bob–is having some legal problems. Bob has powers & abilities roughly comparable to Superman in the late 80s, but he refuses to be called a super-hero; he doesn’t wear a costume or use a code name, and refuses to fight crime unless one happens to be committed right in front of him, though he’s happy to help disaster victims and such. Here’s the sitch:

Recently there was a major flood in a major US city. Now while’s Bob’s a slacker, he’s not heartless, so upon hearing about the lives in danger, he abandoned the MMORPG he’d been playing for the last 30 hours straight (that’s why he hadn’t heard about the flood earlier) and flew cross country to help the helpless. He arrived in time to see they really needed him; there were legions of people in danger of drowning, and the state & local rescue rescue squads were overwhelmed. So he grabbed the nearest school bus and got to rescuing. At first things went swimmingly, but when the bus was almost full, he encountered a fellow who refused to be rescued. Said fellow was a racist white skinhead, you see, and Bob’s black; the skinhead said “I’d rather die than owe a favor to a black man.”

“You sure?” Bob said.

“I’ll wait for somebody else!” the skinhead replied. “Now get outta my face, nigger!”

Bob shrugged, said “See ya, don’t wanna be ya!” and flew off with his busload of refugees. He spent the rest of the day evacuating flood victims and the next few days delivering relief supplies, then went home, ordered a pizza, and resumed his video game. He never bothered to check up on the skinhead, who drowned.

Now Bob’s being sued for wrongful death. The skinhead’s family feels that Bob should have ignored the skinhead’s objections and dragged him out, which would have been trivial. Bob’s position is three-fold:

[ul]
[li]Super-powered or not, he only has two hands, and the bus was almost full. He’d have had to put it down to grab the racist, and he might have injured the guy if he’d been moving at a speed fast enough to get him into the bus before it sank, at which point the skinhead would certainly have sued him. That’s why he left him there.[/li][li]There were countless other people who needed Bob’s help that day–help which, he points out, he provided entirely for free.[/li][li]He doesn’t actually care if racist skinheads die. He’s not Superman; he’s not trying to inspire people to be kinder, gentler, better. “If a guy calls me a nigger,” Bob says, “he can fuck off and die as far as I’m concerned. It’s not like I incinerated the guy with my flash vision.”[/li][/ul]
Whom are you inclined to support in this lawsuit, and why?

2

Precedent was set in Sansweet Vs. Mr Incredible. He was awarded damages for injuries received while being “rescued” from a suicide attempt.

His lawyer stated “He didn’t want to be saved, he didn’t asked to be saved”.

The skinhead clearly stated his choice to die.

3

Unless the law is different for people with superpowers in your hypothetical world, I don’t think a random citizen is legally required to try and save the life of any other random citizen even if they do request help. Hell, even doctors are ethically obligated to obey adult patients who refuse certain lifesaving measures of care. Throw a racist minor in there and it might be a different story.

4

Sounds remarkably similar to Hancock. And, I support the putative superhero.

5

The Court hereby grants Defendant’s motion for summary judgment. Assuming that all of the facts above are true, Plaintiff fails to demonstrate that Defendant was under any legal duty to rescue plaintiff at all, and certainly under no duty after Plaintiff refused Defendant’s offered aid. Judgment entered in favor of Defendant. All costs are taxed to Plaintiff.

6

I don’t think you oughta call him a super-hero. He doesn’t like it, he’s obviously shorta short-tempered, and as noted he can fry you by looking at you. :wink:

I think I noted the Hancock similarity last time I brought Bob up (though I don’t think I called him Bob then). But unlike Hancock he’s not reckless; as I remember that movie, people got pissed at Hancock for using his powers without regard for collateral damage. Bob doesn’t do that (and doesn’t fight crime anyway); he just doesn’t suffer fools as much as Superman.

Oak, could the plaintiffs have a case for intentional infliction of emotional distress? Say, if the skinhead’s relatives had been in the house with him, and, being less stupid than he, had boarded the bus when asked, and thus have been forced to see Bob abandoning him out of pique? (I write *pique *because–speaking as poster rather than OP–I think Bob was being a jerk, and should have flown back to check on the guy once he finished with the current load of refugees.)

7

Feh. The time it would have taken Bob to wrestle the asshole into the bus was better spent saving five others. No problem.

A private citizen can be held responsible for reasonable Samaritanism; I do not believe any jury would find Bob negligent for not going above and beyond.

8

I’d like to point out that Skinheads were amongst the first white people in the UK to embrace Jamaican music…
Check out Laurel Aitken’s “Skinhead Train” from 1969.

9

Not likely. Bob lacks the intent to cause them emotional distress. They were free to wait with the skinhead if they wanted.

10

A dick move, sure, but, powered like Superman? Who had the de facto authority to tell him that it was wrong? Bob’s real problem is that his alter ego doesn’t wear glasses to disguise him.

Clearly the correct course of action was to find a dead white victim (or alive), and use his Super-Heat Vision to sever the hands. Then he could use them like ghoulish salad tongs to save the guy. There, no cooties.

More factually, I believe jurisdictions differ on what someone’s legal responsibility is regarding helping, even if not super power related.

11

I’m sure he has a bank account that could be garnished. Bob wants to live quietly, order pizza, play World of Warcraft, go to Vegas from time to time; he has to defend himself against the lawsuit, even if only to ask for a summary judgment.

Incidentally, the state clearly has authority over Bob; it just may lack the power to enforce its authority.

12

Bob never learned that a super’s identity is their most valuable possession? Not so super now, is he?

Anyway, yes. His actions were ok. Of course a private citizen is not legally required to save someone against their objections. Were he a cop or EMT, it might be a different story.

13

He claims he’s not a super-hero, just a super-being. Given that he only fights crime that happen right in front of him (as you might trip a mugger running from the police, but hardly go out looking for muggers to trip), I doubt he’s accumulated any more enemies that he might have simply by existing.

If I were wise, which obviously I am not, I’d have included a “do you think Bob was being an ass” or “Was Bob being unethical” question in the OP. And as I said above, I don’t’ think he did the right thing (though I’m inclined to accept Oak’s word that he’s covered legally).

14

The asswipe said he didn’t want Bob’s help. Bob would have been committing crimes if he had pulled him out. Assault, battery, and kidnapping among them. I’m sure Bob knew this and was simply trying to comply with the law.

15

Help my imagination: what race/class does he play? Might show his motivations. Can they put him in ersatz-Kryptonite shackles?

I also learned from various sources that there exists something called a “license to kill.” Also, if you have around Gary Oldman long enough, he’s bound to deputize you or at least bend the rules if you get in trouble.

16

I think the original thread said that Bob gets a million bucks a year from Debeers for not making diamonds and dropping them in random spots, the better to ruin their business. So clearly he’s got a ton of cash, and just as clearly he’s arguably dickish.

17

The part that isn’t clear to me from the OP is if rescuing Skinhead would have cost Bob any additional time. If in fact the trouble of rescuing Skinhead carries with it a marginal cost of time and effort, I’d agree Bob was correct to let him die, since a reasonable assessment of the situtation is that bothering with Skinhead could cost other people their lives.

The facts in evidence - that Bob is more or less Superman - suggest that in fact that is the case, since even Superman cannot do things instantaneously. So I’m okay with it, based on that assumption. Bob did not kill Skinhead, and in fact could not have known for sure Skinhead was going to die - after all, maybe Skinhead was a good swimmer or could have found something to float on. And Skinhead does presumably have the right to choose his method of escape from the flood.

However, if we were to change the hypothetical just a little and presume that there was no marginal cost to saving Skinhead, I would argue then that Bob had a moral right to save the man (but not a legal obligation.) Skinhead may be a contemptible ass, but he is a human being.

18

“callous refusal to lend assistance is not actionable”

Barring a specific statutory compulsion, you are not required to help anybody - you are free to walk past the person bleeding to death - common law is on your side.

19

Morally I think Bob’s fine. Skinhead had the right to self-determination; just because we don’t agree with the guy’s choice (as well as feeling no great loss over the consequences of said choice) doesn’t mean that someone is obligated to force skinhead’s hand. It can easily be argued that the most moral option was to respect skinhead’s choice.

Skinhead was a competent adult, even if emotionally a man-child, and can make up his own mind about how he wants his life to end. (As you might suspect, I support euthanasia/assisted suicide as an ethical choice, too.) Skinhead’s rights only end when he tries to hurt someone else.

20

I also think his actions were morally okay. Not because racism deserves a death sentence, but because the skinhead said he didn’t want to be helped. Bob didn’t kill him, he let him die. However, if Bob were even marginally culpable for creating the circumstances leading to the disaster, my answer would be much different.