I saw a pic online showing a car window with a sign that said something like “Please do not break windows, doors are unlocked, no valuables inside”.
To me, that seems almost like an open invitation to steal the car. It’s obviously unlocked, and presumably has no security system. Couldn’t people sleep in there, do whatever illegal activity they want, and then claim that they were “enticed” by the note? That seems like a liability suit waiting to happen.
I digress, the real question is “If I were to rig a device that would give an electrical shock to anyone trying to tamper with the steering column or ignition system, would I be liable if they were injured, killed, or died as a result of said shocking device”?
For the sake of argument, let’s assume this is a perfect system that allows law enforcement and other sanctioned use without issue. Only people trying to steal this car would be affected.
The intent would be to mildly shock the thief, hoping he or she would flee and find another target. For the purpose of this scenario, a shocked thief always runs away. If one thief tried to steal the car, had a heart condition, and died in the process… could there be any liability?
It’s probably safer and at least as effective. Of course you have to be really, really sure he’s going to steel your car since it will leave quite a mess.
Let’s see. You want to rig up a concealed mantrap and leave it on the public street. You are worried that you might have some liablity if it injures somebody.
Depends on the local law, obviously, but it would be very, very surprising if you had no liability in this circumstance.
I doubt that you can make yourself not liable for injury or death caused by your mantrap just by writing “I’m not liable for injury or death” on your mantrap.
It’s easy to envisage circumstances in which someone might quite legitimately need to move your car, e.g. it is parked in such a way as to block the passage of an ambulance. They might not pause to read the window sticker.
I appreciate that you don’t want your car stolen, but that’s a risk when you decide to store your property unsupervised in the public street, and you can’t shift that risk onto other users of the public street by booby-trapping it, which is effectively what you’re proposing. You need to find other ways of managing the risk of theft, which don’t involve creating the rather more worrying risk of injury or death.
Do you think you would be justified in leaving a booby-trapped video camera or computer on the sidewalk? So how does the calculation differ if the item of property you are seeking to protect is a car?
Because you could pick up a camera on a sidewalk to see why it was there or to turn it in to proper authorities. You don’t accidentally get into someone’s car and try to drive it off.
Its one of those things where I am sure most people would like to stand behind the property owner in any particular circumstance. I assume most people think thieves have what is coming to them. However, if you set that president and there were hundreds of thousands of mantraps in the country in all kinds of property, that could cause problems.
I read a case in law school where a guy whose isolated house had been repeatedly broken into set up a shotgun on a tripwire, pointing at the front door, to kill anyone who forced entry. He put up deadly-force warning signs all around the house. Sure enough, some idiot criminal broke in and was shot and killed. His family sued the homeowner and won (I don’t think he was criminally prosecuted, though).
Every state has different laws, but as a general rule, you’re not entitled to inflict pain or use potentially deadly force to protect your property. It’s just not worth it, and the law will hold you liable for any injuries you thus cause. Criminals aside, you also never know when some innocent passerby or a police officer might be inadvertently hurt or killed.
Pretty sure I read the same case, or at least a similar one. Want to say it used the term “spring gun” to describe the booby trap, but I don’t remember.
You’re heading down a different path here, though. Castle doctrine would determine the legality of using force in such a situation and they vary wildly from state to state. A car is a different story as I don’t think there’s ANY justifiable circumstance in which one wouldn’t be held liable for booby trapping the car. Where I live, for example, if you break into my house, I can blow your head off and not give the consequences a second thought. I can likewise kill you if you attempt to steal my car while I’m in it. But an unoccupied car? No dice.
I worked for a security company that was one of the first distributors of pepper spray when it first hit the market. One of the owners left a can on the dash of the car and it burst in the Texas sun. Car was pretty much undriveable after that, there was no way to get that stuff out of the interior.
So quite a mess wouldn’t cover it. You’d have to be willing to junk the car if it went off.