And again, I don’t think anyone is saying you owe much of a duty to a trespasser. You leave your rake or garden hose out and the bastard trips over it? His fault. He shouldn’t have been there in the first place. All people are saying is that you can’t deliberately try to hurt the fucker. You can’t set a trap. You can lock up your property all you want. Just make it look as if it is locked up and protected. Don’t bait a guy into hurting himself.
A strong mailbox is not a trap. It’s a mailbox. and you can install them all day long. there’s no baiting involved and implying there was baiting requires proof. it’s not something you can legally throw against a wall and hope a jury believes you.
The flaw in your argument is that the mere upgrade to a stronger mailbox is an indication of a crime of entrapment. It’s not. It’s an indication someone wanted a stronger mailbox.
I wonder if any one ever just mounts their box to the side of the pole. If it was on the downroad side they would have to cross over to hit it, and then they would still be hitting the pole.
As there is no demonstrable safe way to do this from a moving car it’s not going to move the metric in any direction.
And you can keep saying this over and over and over and over, but it doesn’t make it any more true. What happens is a jury looks at the particular situation and decides if you just are the kind of guy who puts in a really strong mailbox, where it is located in relation to the road, if you had previous damage done to a mailbox, if you told your neighbor that you were putting a really strong mailbox in to teach the little fuckers a lesson, if the kids got really hurt, and looks at the whole scope of the situation.
That jury will be instructed that if the twelve of them believe that you deliberately set a trap and someone was injured more than they would have been had you not set a trap, then you pay. That’s how it works, your declarations otherwise notwithstanding. You are literally arguing against what has been settled law for years.
Once again, I feel like slamming my head into a concrete mailbox. Not a soul in this thread has said that it is safe to swing at a mailbox from moving car. Nary a one. Why you bring this up as a point in your favor is beyond me.
You can’t just accuse someone of a crime without EVIDENCE. The jury would be instructed to dismiss an accusation without it. Since it’s LEGAL to install a mailbox that resists damage there is no assumption it was done for any reason other that resisting damage. There is no obligation to advertise how sturdy a replacement mailbox is or an original mailbox.
Making an unfounded accusation without evidence opens up the defendant to sue for defamation of character.
Really, what part of this don’t you understand?
But testimony is evidence. Depositions are evidence. There won’t be an instruction to dismiss simply because the activity did not violate a specific criminal code. As I said, maybe the homeowner’s argument that he just likes strong mailboxes wins the day. But the instruction to the jury will certainly be that regardless of the fact that it is legal to buy and install a very strong mailbox, one can be liable for putting it somewhere where he substantially knows or intends to set a trap.
I mean, it is completely legal to have, own, and operate a private swimming pool. But if I accidentally leave the gate unlatched and the neighbor kid drowns, you bet my homeowners insurance will be paying. If I say that my buddy Magiver on the SDMB said that the neighbors can get lost because pools are legal, then the judge will laugh at me.
The prosecution has to have evidence of a crime going into court. Otherwise it’s an unfounded accusation.
That’s negligence. Installing a sturdy mailbox isn’t.
If you planned to put the mailbox in with the intention and hope of hurting vandals, and there is evidence of this (i.e. you emailed someone about your plan for vandals to be injured), then you could be found civilly or criminally liable for anyone harmed. If you just wanted a sturdy mailbox, and there’s no evidence you intended to cause someone injury, than you wouldn’t be.
That’s the law, at least according to the lawyers in this thread.
But it is legal. And it is more than negligence, it is recklessness, to put a mailbox up with the intent to hurt a kid that swings at it.
no, leaving your gate open to a pool is negligence. If the kids take a baseball bat to it and force it open and then drown then it’s their fault.
Well, you rarely get a golden gift like that, but the evidence is there. I’m always an old man when it comes to prices, but say that a regular mailbox costs $20. If you installed one that looks like a regular, cheap mailbox, but it is extra strong and cost $150, you will be asked about that in a deposition. What do you do for a living? You make $50k per year? Money is tight for you, no? But for what reason did you spend your money, that you admit is tight, an extra $130 for a thing that receives mail? Just because you didn’t want a storm to blow it down? Okay.
Then the jury watches the man’s demeanor and if it believes him, that he spent extra money because he likes strong mailboxes, then he is fine. If they think that he tried to hurt the little bastards swinging a bat at it, he (or his homeowner’s policy) pays. This is hornbook law.
there isn’t going to be a deposition unless you have evidence it was done to harm someone. You’re injecting all manner of personal suposition without evidence.
I don’t think that’s how lawsuits work.
Of course you will. You don’t need any evidence to file a civil suit. You just say that the guy installed it in a willful, wanton, and reckless way. You can file the notice of deposition the same day.
I can file a civil suit saying you’ve committed all manner of bad things. Without evidence it’s DOA. You’re not required to answer questions. You don’t seem to understand you need evidence in order to prosecute a case. You’re opinion plus $20 won’t buy a cup of coffee from a vending machine in the court building.
Testimony is evidence. The kid who has two busted shoulders from hitting a mailbox will make a judge or jury think that isn’t what should happen from hitting a regular mailbox. The homeowner lying about his $150 mailbox is also evidence. You don’t need fingerprints or DNA to prosecute a case.
It might not be a winning case. Nobody has said it is a guaranteed win. But the jury will be instructed contrary to your beliefs.
Even so, if a suit is filed one is compelled to answer it, running up legal fees in the process. A point seemingly lost in this thread is that it’s advisable not to give someone an excuse to sue.
Has that ever happened? The case that comes up on an Internet search is the one where a dope in Oregon swung at a telephone pole with a metal bat and it rebounded to hit the head of a backseat passenger who was leaning out his window. I doubt the phone company had to pay a judgment.
Historical note: when we lived in Lexington, KY, the house we moved into had a partially crumbling brick column enclosing a mailbox (there were many others in the area). I refurbished the brick, never realizing I was perpetuating a Nuisance. No one in law or code enforcement ever cited me for it. Currently we have a standard plastic one on a plastic post. If it ever gets knocked off by dimwits (like happened once in Ohio) I plan to take a few minutes to refasten it on the post.
Most of this stuff “never” happens. They are big names that we know about because they are so unusual. In most of these cases, the kid’s mother tells him that it was his own damn fault and we aren’t filing anything…so suck it up. Other times they are settled with an NDA. I’ll bet in that case you talk about, the phone company paid some nuisance money to make him go away, and so we don’t see it in a published case. Or his mother beat his ass when he got home, or something in between.
If you have testimony that says it was done to hurt someone yes. Otherwise the defendant isn’t required to testify. That’s what pleading the 5th is all about.
And long before you get to that you have to present evidence something was done illegally, establish that hitting mailboxes from a moving car is safe, what the parameters are involved in safely doing this, what mailbox construction falls within those parameters, post construction, mounting construction etc, and what was done by the vandal to insure those parameters are met.
There is no civil duty to install a mailbox that is “safe” to vandalize and that’s the end of the case. You have to show that the homeowner failed to carry out a legal duty owed to the plaintiff.