I’m too lazy to find the original thread. It was thousands of posts long. I’m certainly not interested in rehashing whether Rittenhouse acted in self defense. A new jury under civil court rules can find him civilly liable regardless of the outcome of the previous trial. Go back and read the previous thousands of posts to see the arguments either way.
The interesting thing about the civil suit is if there really could be anyone else that shared responsibility to the point of civil liability.
He could have opened verbally:
“I rebuke thee and demand thy weapon be surrendered in haste.”
Both are behind a paywall.
It should be noted that this is only one of several lawsuits. One particular lawsuit was in the news this week because of the judge’s ruling on a dismissal motion.
While looking at other articles I saw an update on Joshua Zimimski. Ziminski was the guy who fired the first shot, the “warning shot” that could be seen as part of a reasonable belief that Rittenhouse felt he was in danger. Ziminski still hasn’t been to trial for charges of arson from the protest because he was charged with witness tampering during jury selection. Since then he and his wife have been charged with burglary and armed robbery in a new incident.
That’s odd. I don’t believe I have subscriptions to them.
I cleared my cookies and got my free articles back.
Or if the car lot did hire him, why would they not also be liable?
It seems clear he wasn’t hired. No money changed hands. Possibly someone asked for volunteer help.
I assume the goal is to move the responsibility up to some point of maximum funding - the dealers insurance - the city - some police organization. The lawyers are money mining.
The dealer was responsible for the actions of anyone he engaged to protect his property. He was accountable for exercising due diligence in his selection of volunteer personnel. The dealer was also responsible for creating a contract with a job description specifying tasks and limits. Failure to do any of this would make him free game for interested lawyers.
One could opine ‘c’mon man, the kid was just guarding an empty building, it wasn’t a federal case’. True but the dealer authorized a child with a semi-automatic rifle to carry out any and all unspecified acts on his property during a riot. He is responsible for the result.
I assume the police contract contains a provision that the city cannot use volunteers for police duties. Police auxiliaries have to negotiate their duties with the police. When the police welcomed and encouraged Rittenhouse did they de facto deputize him? If not, in what capacity were they interfacing with him? What was he allowed to do?
I suspect all of these entities will come up with cash to make the suits go away. Even if it’s only to keep the lawyers from making them look like completely incompetent assholes. That should not take long because the sooner the cheaper for the defendants.
But, not so for Rittenhouse. The family wants whatever he’s got, and all of it.
Hard to see how the car dealership owner can be liable when none of the killings happened on his property.
That’s not the test. He may or may not be liable. (I’m skeptical) But he doesn’t escape liability simply because of where the killings took place.
Assuming his task (whether assigned by the dealership or taken on by KR’s own initiative) was property protection, he wasn’t using the gun for that. He only ever raised his gun (and shot) in self-defense. Would the dealership be responsible if KR had killed someone in self-defense with a knife? A baseball bat? What about with his bare hands?
I’m not a lawyer, but I would guess at least maybe. The devil is in the details. If they invited him there, or allowed him to stay, then they were accepting some degree of responsibility for what happened. If a 40 year old security guard kills somebody in the process of protecting the establishment, and it is shown that there was civil liability for the killing regardless of criminal liability, then for sure their employer is going to be paying the bill. Allowing a minor to act as your unpaid security guard certain seems like it opens up some liability, perhaps even more so since Rittenhouse has no training, license, etc. to be a security guard. Again, there are details I don’t think we know at this point with regards to the relationship between the auto dealership and the Rittenhouse. What did they say to him? What did he say to them?
You seem to be making a lot of assumptions that I have seen zero evidence of.
Yep, just my thoughts trying to make sense of what I am told.
Like you said - assumptions.