Rhode Island Night Club Disaster-A Legal Whitewash?

[Cheesesteak]

*Originally posted by SuaSponte *
If the cop says “go ahead and stab that guy,” that’s a very different thing than negligence. Same with a cop who, as you say deliberately stands idly by, as opposed to a cop who simply doesn’t notice when he should notice.

Yes, I agree. This would be the difference between a bad worker and a person who is criminally negligent. One you fire, the other (I hope) you prosecute. The fire inspector who failed to notice obvious fire hazards is just a bad inspector, the inspector who notices a fire trap and gives the green light anyway is something else.

Assuming that they weren’t, you still cannot “absolutely rely” on a place meeting Health & Safety codes - you would have to check. The government has no responsibility, for very good and obvious reasons, to call you and every other citizen of the town up personally and tell you which establishments passed inspection and which did not. You would not be able to assume that the building in question passed code; you would have to check.

Only problem here is that the building passed! If it failed and the club was open illegally, you have a point.

And that, of course, brings us to another point. The sole liability is with the owner of the building. The duty of the building owner is to have a safe building. The fire inspection does not eliminate or mitigate that duty in any way. If the building owner improperly puts in flammable insulation, he’s the one who created the hazard and bears responsibility. It is irrelevant whether the fire inspector noticed the insulation or not.

You seem to be arguing that the act of a fire inspection is completely meaningless. Customers cannot rely on it as a statement that the building is safe. Owners cannot rely on it to ensure their construction/design is safe. What do they do other than give a Fire Marshal a check every two weeks?