Did George Costanza have a case?

In yesterday’s episode of Seinfeld (The Bris) on <shudder> TBS, George was, if I recall correctly, parked legally in front of a hospital. One of the patients committed suicide by jumping off the roof of the hospital and landed on George’s car.

George, after getting an estimate, had a conference with the hospital’s administrator to request the hospital foot the bill to have the roof of his car repaired. The administrator summarily dismissed him.

Now, I’m aware anyone can file a suit but if George had done so, what are the chances he would have been awarded damages?

Not a lawyer yadda yadda, but I would say he had a case. Pretend it wasn’t a patient, but a brick or something. The hospital would be responsible. Of course, first I would look toward the patient’s insurance. If he had none, then go after the hospital.

You forgot a ‘yadda’.

Saw the same ep recently. What bothered me and the missus (bothh lawyers) was the administrator’s attitude in suggesting he was a bad person for desiring compensation.

Hospitalized psych patient gets out, gains access to roof, and kills self? G would have to stand in line with the other Plaintiffs. And he’d have his choice of defendants - including the hospital.

Oops - forgot to add - assume G’s insurance would compensate him and then be responsible for subrogating against the hospital.

I wasn’t sure of the insurance laws in NYC, so I intentionally omitted such a scenario.

I, too, was bothered by the administrator’s attitude. She accused George of trying to profit from the tragedy!

yadda.
sorry

It wouldn’t have been a very good episode if George’s insurance company had taken care of the whole thing, now would it?

:slight_smile:

Between Kramer and the pigman and Jerry and the mohel, it still would have been a good episode. That mohel was priceless.

Jerry: But he wasn’t a pigman, was he?
Kramer: No. Just a fat little mental patient.

Wow! I thought for sure this would be about the death of Susan and the poison envelopes. I know, I know, he didn’t want to marry her, but he did like her money (evidenced when he was teh head of the ‘foundation’)

I always thought George should have sued there.

I might have sued for the car too…but as has been mentioned, insurance would have paid for the bulk of it and the ‘lost life’ would be worth more money!

That raises two interesting legal questions, Jorel.

  1. Since George wasn’t a relative of Susan, could he have brought a wrongful death suit against the invitation manufacturer or its glue supplier? Does relation to the deceased even matter?

  2. I may be misremembering, but didn’t the manufacturer of the invitations go out of business sometime ago? If I recall correctly, the clerk wasn’t sure if the store would have any in stock because of this. In cases such as this, whom does one sue?

Yup, Dimsdale is right: George would’ve had a case against the hospital. However, knowledge of the law was never a strong point of the writers on “Seinfeld” (e.g., look at all the legal errors during the trial in the “Seinfeld” finale).

You know…pork? Sausage? “A-ba-dee-a-ba-dee-that’s all folks!?”

I hadn’t thought of that one. I was thinking this question was either about the pigman episode (which I think is a no-brainer in favor of George), or the hand model episode.

“But I don’t want to be a pirate!”

This thread makes me think that this might be a good topic for a legal seminar (“Seinfeldian Law–Legal Questions Raised by ‘Seinfeld’ Episodes and How They Should Be Addressed in Real Life”).