About the McDonalds thing. ( Sorry this has been hashed and rehased and composed, but I am still gonna say it.)
Between my freshman and sophomore year of University I waited tables in a breakfast joint in Colorado. The owners had just bought the restaurant and had little or no experience in the food business. Consiquently, my boss was not really good behind the counter. He would constantly stop suddenly, come out the wrong door, or revearse direction with no warning. It made him somewhat dangerous.
One day, on a particularly heavy breakfast shift, I was in the process of coffeeing people at the counter, when this idjut just all of a sudden backed into me full tilt. The coffee pot spilled all down my front. It resulted in some 1st degree burns, and wearing a bra was pretty uncomforatble for several days. I, for one, am sure glad I didn’t work at McDonalds.
Coffee is supposed to be hot. It is not supposed to fuse your labia. McDonalds had settled several lawsuits out of court before this, but the 1/4 cent they were saving on each pot of coffee by keeping it that hot made settling the suits out of court more cost efficient than turning down the heat. To me, that is the point of lawsuits. When companies decide that profit is more important than safety lawsuits seem to be a much more effective reign on freemarket gone wrong than any legislation could be
Sure they will. But, in doing so, they will be just as idiotic as you. Who gives a fuck if she wants to be out at midnight?
You have yet to demonstrate that this lawsuit is frivolous. It might surprise you to know this, but your continued repetition of the allegation does not make it true.
And i love the way that you offer kickbacks to political officials as support for your argument. If the strength of your position rests on the fact that the system encourages political bribery, then maybe this lawsuit is not the most profitable place to direct your self-righteous stupidity.
Explain why this is at all relevant to the issue at hand.
I’ll take reading comprehension for $1000 Alex.
I never said that there was no corruption in government. But you argument against penalising Con-Ed appears to be, “Hey, they bribe politicians anyway so what’s the point in fining them?” That’s about the lamest argument possible. If your assertions about political corruption are true—and they probably are—why don’t you focus your ire on the political corruption, rather than on what appears on its face to be a reasonable lawsuit.
So i am. I apologise, moderators, for breaking forum rules. I guess i’m used to seeing such ridiculous arguments only in the Pit.
What does NYC law say about skateboarding (day or night) on the sidewalk?
No, you shouldn’t expect to get branded by landing on a manhole cover. You also shouldn’t be breaking the law, either. Not that getting branded is a proper punishment for said crime (assuming that it is).
Re: the corruption
Let’s say Con Ed is found guilty of negligence. The court awards the woman some ridiculous amount of money. Con Ed appeals. The award is lowered. Con Ed gets fined. Where does the money go? The city or state goverment. As part of the punishment, Con Ed is forced to address and fix the problem. That’ll be expensive as I can imagine NYC has more than a few manhole covers. Con Ed will cry about the expense and say that the only way they can afford is to increase rates. They’ll overstate it (allowing for inflation, union costs, etc). The government will have to approve it. Some government official will get his palm greased (maybe not, but I wouldn’t be surprised). Now everyone who uses Con Ed gets to pay their “fair” share. The question will arise as to why Con Ed didn’t address this issue before (has THIS type of incident ever happened before? I know there were several electrical mishaps). They’ll say they were aware it might happen, but the odds were against, so they never addressed it. Maybe someone inside Con Ed mentioned it, but was hushed.
Yes, I’m assuming a lot and if information comes out to the contrary, I’ll retract my statement.
This is a losing argument. Even assuming that skateboarding at midnight is a crime, which I’ve seen no evidence that it is, that wouldn’t necessarily relieve a tortfeasor of liability. Now, I’m not licensed in New York, but I have to believe that New York is on board with contributory negligence. And, incidentally, Mr. Blue Sky, your argument would be better if you framed it in those terms. Try this:
I’m not saying she has no right to skateboard at night. I am saying that it’s night time, and things are dark. She likely couldn’t see as well as she could during the day. Knowing that, and knowing that there are hazards that might be visible during the day that are harder to see at night, she has some responsibility to conduct herself safely at night. Perhaps the reason she tripped on the manhole cover is because she wasn’t conducting herself appropriately for the conditions (i.e., darkness) at the time. We also don’t know whether she was impaired in any fashion: had she been drinking? was she overly tired? All of those could help us get a better picture of what happened.
Nitpick: “found liable for negligence.” Guilt is a criminal term; liability is a civil term.
I don’t know what New York’s limitations on compensatory or punitive damages are, but SCOTUS has held that a multiplier of less than ten is pretty much the outer limit for punitives. So assume that her compensatory damages amount to $100,000. That’s a pretty hefty sum, so I wouldn’t expect to see punitives above about $500,000.
No. An award made in a civil lawsuit is not a “fine.” The money generally goes to the plaintiff. There are a handful of states (I don’t believe New York is among them) that do award the punitive damages in a lawsuit to a victim’s fund held by the state, but I think in New York the money would go to the plaintiff.
You’re thinking in criminal terms here, but I think it’s likely that the plaintiff will seek an injunction to force Con Ed to correct the problem, which could be expensive, or could be cheap. If the court grants the injunction, Con Ed can settle with the plaintiff so that the injunction has no force. There are always options.
Not necessarily, particularly if Con Ed is complaining about a judgment in the million dollar area. I’d be surprised if they could convince the government that an award in that arena would bankrupt them.
Bribery is illegal. If caught, the jail terms can be hefty, and Con Ed would go out of business. Why would they risk it over something as small as this?
If so, this would be relevant to the issue of punitive damages and would come out at the trial. There are whistleblower laws, etc., to protect people who come forward.
Look – I understand that there is a current culture of antipathy for big business. But it’s a bit of a reach to castigate a company based on a media report, particularly when, nine times out of ten, the media tends to side with the “little guy” over big business, even when the equities lie with big business. What if we found out that the midnight skateboarder was on her way to make a drug deal? What if we found out that the midnight skateboarder had filed seven previous claims, for similar injuries, with a variety of different companies over the previous year? What if we found out that at the time she claimed to have been injured, she was actually at home asleep? While I have no basis to believe that any of that is true, there’s really so little to go on in this article that we all simply find ourselves reverting to our prejudices.
I’m talking about if Con Ed is found to be liable for negligence and potentially putting citizens in harm’s way, wouldn’t/couldn’t the government fine them after they’ve paid the palintiff?
That depends on whether New York has a regulatory scheme that makes what Con Ed did a violation of said scheme. That same scheme would also dictate the amount of any possible penalty, as well as where that money goes. But that’s a separate issue, and isn’t dependent on the result of the skateboarder’s lawsuit. That is to say, even if the skateboarder is successful in her suit, the government would still need to conduct its own investigation, issue citations based on that investigation, and provide Con Ed with a hearing regarding those citations. It’s not an open and shut issue.
Also, to be honest, with all the ridiculous and seemingly-arbitrary transfers of threads between The Pit and MPSIMS lately, it’s actually hard to remember which forum you’re in at times.
Do all NEW York manhole covers get dangerously hot (beyonde the effect of direct sunlight on metal) ?
This isn’t something that happens in every city. I know New York has some kind of underground steam process that leads to the famous steam venting in the roads. Is this what makes the man hole covers so hot?
If so then this seems like a safety issue, perhapse a system of replacing the manhole covers as they become damaged with manhole covers made from low-conductance materials. If no such policy exists, then maybe this sort of lawsuit will kick the politicains up the arse until they try to fix this problem.
My thoughts being, maybe a New Yorker might be expected to know the manholes could be hot, but an out-of-towner may not know, and I could see a lot of Children getting burnt in Cycling or similar accidents.
FYI, New York’s statute of limitations for “an action to recover damages for a personal injury” is three years. Civil Practice Law & Rules 214.
Commonly, a suit won’t be filed immediately because it takes a plaintiff and his or her lawyer some time to investigate the incident and to conduct pre-litigation settlement discussions.