Personal Accountability? Feh.

The BBQ Pit
1

Here is my first-ever SDMB rant.

The story: Several months ago in my town, a group of people were killed in a rather horrific one-car accident. After driving at an estimated 80+ miles per hour down a poorly-maintained one-lane backroad at 3am, they collided with a large tree when the car spun out of control. All were killed instantly. Post-mortem autopsies revealed that all of the people in the car, including the driver, had blood alcohol levels far over the legal limit, and tox screens revealed the presence of amphetamines in the blood of two of the passengers. All the individuals in the car were over 21 years of age.

It has now been revealed via newspaper and town gossip that the parents of the passengers are now attempting to bring a civil suit against the parents of the driver, asking for an amount in excess of several hundred thousand dollars. Their argument breaks down like this: Due to your bad parenting skills, your child did not know any better than to get drunk and high and get our kids killed. Therefore, it’s your fault our kids got killed.

The rant:

(knee-jerk version)Holy fucking misplaced anger, Batman! Pot? Kettle? Black! What the fuck?!

(slightly more well-thought-out version) I am terribly sorry that these people have lost their children. I cannot even imagine the depth of pain, anger, and sorrow they feel. My heart goes out to them. I do not blame them for being angry; I blame them for attempting to profit financially from the death of their own children and the pain of other parents in the same situation.

How dare you bring such charges against the driver’s parents? How dare you blame them for such a tragedy? How dare you sink to such bottom-feeding scummery and try to GET CASH NOW!!! from yours and others’ deep personal loss? What the fuck is wrong with you people? I know you’re hurt, and angry, and naturally, you want someone to blame. But unfortunately, the only people you can blame are your own kids. Yes, painful as it is to realize, and dickishly insensitive it is of me to point out, but your kids GOT IN THAT CAR. They were drunk; they were high; they knew the driver was the same. They made a poor decision and now they are dead. This is no one’s fault but their own. They were in their mid-twenties, for the love of Christ!!! No one is responsible for them excpet themselves. If they fuck up, there is no one else to blame.

Now, I’m not saying these kids were evil, or stupid, or deserved it. They certainly didn’t. We all make bad choices, we all fuck up. And millions of people make the same mistake these kids made everyday and live to tell the tale. It’s just rotten luck. Yes, it’s irresponsible and reckless, and no one should do it, but people do. Do they deserve death? I don’t think so. But attempting to put the blame, and then make money off of someone else in a tragedy like this, in which there are only victims, is about the most evil, ass-sucking, fucked-up action I can imagine taking. Maybe these parents should have raised their kids better; so should everyone else in the situation.

Okay, over-long, not too well-organized, I know, but it’s my first rant, and it’s just off the top of my head after having picked up tomorrow’s paper. Any thoughts?

2

See? This is why people shouldn’t try to weasel their way out of jury duty.

3

Don’t worry, Friedo, there’s people who do their duty. Hopefully in this case, they’ll think the same way the OP does!

4

I can’t see any legs for any suits to stand on here. For a little perspective, the legal age for drinking (and voting, for that matter) in Alberta is 18. These people were all well over the legal age for drinking, and I can’t see any way to hold the parents of an adult responsible for what that adult does. I couldn’t even blame the driver’s parents in my heart, because that would mean that I would have to blame myself, too, for raising kids that got themselves into this situation.

5

This is one of my favorite lines I have ever heard on this board.

6

I assumed the people were teenagers when I read the first of the OP. It’s a shame they were killed, but even teenagers ought to know better than drive around drunk and high, especially at high speeds.

I wonder if filing a lawsuit is just reflexive these days.

7

People look for any excuse to get money these days, and ever since that woman won her millions from McDonald’s for spilling her own damn coffee on herself while driving, it’s become apparent that hey, you can seemingly get away with anything. I heard that there’s even a group of families in Mexico that are threatening to sue the US government because they blame them for the lost lives of family members who died TRYING TO CROSS THE US BORDER ILLEGALLY! Apparently it’s our fault they fell down cliffs or starved to death in their trek.

It’s ridiculous, but I’m sure they’re going on the premise that, had they been hit by a drunk driver, and that driver lived, they would sue that person for their negligence. That, in my opinion, is a valid response. BUT, that is not the situation here. Here, you have a bunch of young people who made several stupid decisions, paid the ultimate price for it, and a bunch of self-centered fucks who care more for money than helping their nieghbors move through the hurt and anguish. It’s upsetting, ridiculous, and sickening.

But hey, it’s America. That’s how we deal with grief. Find someone to place the blame on and sue them for all they’re worth.

8

At my last physical, when the doctor hit my knee with the little hammer, I was on the phone with my lawyer before I even knew what I was doing.

9

Elvis here’s the real mcFacts about the McDonald McCoffee case you were wrong she wasn’t driving

as for the OP:

Yes, the passengers have some culpability (if they knew the driver was drunk, not saying they didn’t, just saying you do have to establish that). Did (s)he represent themselves as being ‘fine to drive’? etc. which of course would be one point of a lawsuit.

But, the driver of the car has culpability as well for the results of their actions, even if others assisted.

10

But the parents of the driver, who was over 21, don’t.

Assuming that they didn’t play some other rôle in the events.

11

as (presumably) executors of the young person’s ‘estate’, the parents would be the ones to sue on behalf of the deceased.

12

But just as presumably, they should be sueing the driver’s estate, not the parents.

13

Presumably, they shold be more sad about the loss of their children than concerned about how to make some quick cash.

14

Elvis: I think we’ve been around this mulberry bush before, but maybe I’m misremembering. To summarize the webpage, the coffee was hot enough to scald the poor moron. Give her thighs third-degree burns through her pants. That’s too freaking hot. McDonald’s knew this, knew that its coffee was substantially hotter than is normal for fast-food joints, and there had been prior instances of just this happening. Seven hundred, according to the page.

So, put two and two together: McDonald’s knew that its coffee was hot enough to cause serious bodily harm, that it had done so on numerous occasions in the past, and yet did not remedy the problem. That is, in the criminal world, reckless endangerment. (See McFact 5 for a particularly damning statement that would surely prove my case.) The poor woman got hurt by the coffee through no fault of her own. After all, would the reasonable person expect to get third-degree burns on irself by merely spilling a drink? Nope. So McDonald’s was at fault. Not 2.7 million dollars at fault, but $480,000 at fault. But still at fault.

15

Incidentally, a sunburn is usually a first degree burn. Think of degrees as layers of skin. When you get down to the third layer of skin, that’s a VERY severe burn.

16

[continuing hijack]First degree burn involves pain and redness. Second degree generally includes blistering in addition. Once you get to third degree burns, you start seeing things like charred flesh (if open flame is involved) and destruction of nerve endings because of the depth of tissue destruction.[/hijack]

And if I were those other parents, I would worry that someone would turn around and sue them as well - perhaps the parents of the driver would allege that they pressured their kid into driving them all home or something. It makes nearly as much (read: little) sense as the suit described in the OP.

I have ridden in a car with a drunk driver once in my life, and do not intend to again. Both of us knew that what we were doing was really stupid, even though we were both drunk, and it brought me great shame to have done that. I considered myself just as responsible for it as the driver. (As an aside, we didn’t get in an accident. We drove home on back roads, going at or slightly below the speed limit, and only saw a couple of cars the whole time. It was still very stupid to do.)

17

Why is everyone jumping on me for referencing the McStupid Lawsuit? I used it as a simple reference because, when it originally happened, this is how most people talked about it:

“Did you hear about that woman who spilled her coffee on her and sued McDonalds for a million dollars because it was hot? Can you believe she won?”

There wasn’t much said about the specifics, and to this day, most people don’t even care. What was talked about and what was remembered was: A woman spilled hot coffee on herself, she then sued McDonalds, and won a lot of money.

That’s the basics, and that spawned a whole batch of stupid ass lawsuits. Like people who break into a person’s house, get mauled by the victim’s dog, and then sue the victim for being attacked. Nobody cares about the specifics, it was the biggest example of “Do something stupid, find someone else to place the blame on, and you’re good for some quick cash.”

I wish I was a judge just so I could get cases like this, look at the person and say “Get the fuck out of my court.” Yes, some instances, like the McCoffee bit, there is some blame to place on the establishment. But too many people take events like this and see them as examples of “Hey, someone else can pay for my stupidity,” and that’s what I see with this case.

It’s a horrible thing what happened to those people. It’s a disgusting thing what these parents are doing to one another.

18

Hmmm, why in the world would we, posters on a message board devoted to fighting ignorance, call out another poster who yet again posted misinformation, instead of, oh, say correcting the information?
Anyone???
Anyone???
Bueller?

:rolleyes:

19

Just a thought: I don’t know the details of the crash, but is it possible the passengers were doing something to distract the driver? In a car full of drunk, high-spirited kids, it’s entirely possible someone was climbing around or jostling the driver or any number of things that make concentrating on the road more than a little tricky. Not that there’s evidence such a thing occurred – my point is that we don’t know and neither do the parents of the passengers.

I’m not trying to belittle the tragedy of the situation, I’m just saying that we don’t really know what was going on in that car. Assigning blame is a murky prospect at best, should one want to do such a thing (I don’t, but then again I didn’t know anyone involved) I don’t, however, think blame should lie with the parents of the driver. I understand that sometimes grieving people need to find a target for all of their pain and anger but this one really seems inappropriate to me.

20

Again, could someone please tell me when the little message was beamed into my brain that states that this bored is “devoted to fighting ignorance”? Personally, I’m here to have fun. Entering into debates is sometimes fun for me.

As for ignorance, did you even read any of the rest of my post, or just that “Woman spills coffee on herself and sues McDonalds is all Elvis knows.” I explained that I knew what really happened, there’s a fucking link to the story, so everyone who takes the time knows what really happen, and I also explained that

  1. Nobody cares what really happened
  2. Not everyone is informed of what really happened, because at the time the story was posted, all they cared about was some woman sued McDonald’s for spilling her coffee on herself and won the case
  3. This started a trent of people suing others for their own fuck ups.

You want to fight ignorance? Here’s a way to start. Read an entire post, understand it, and THEN post about it. Quit focusing on one stupid aspect used as an example that’s ALREADY BEEN EXPLAINED and get back to the original debate. :rolleyes: