There is a legal requirement that you not make things with the intention of leading to someone getting hurt. If you make a mailbox with this intention, and someone gets hurt, you may be held liable if your intention can be demonstrated with evidence.
It really is amazing that you’re not getting this.
Have you read the OP? It’s about someone filling a mailbox with concrete. It’s also been said over and over by literally everyone arguing with you that someone installing a sturdy mailbox for the purpose of having a sturdy mailbox will not be in trouble. It’s the person installing a trap disguised as a mailbox that may get in trouble.
It has everything to do with this statement of yours:
That case involved someone breaking into someone else’s house to steal from it, clearly a dangerous and illegal act. And yet, the robber still won the case. How could that be?
that’s a false statement. It’s not inherently dangerous to break into a house. the shotgun represents a booby trap. It’s clearly a weapon that actively harms someone. It is not comparable to trying to hit something from a moving car. The act itself is dangerous. If someone is injured doing that the fault lies with the driver of the car. That is the person most responsible for elevating the level of danger.
The mailbox is an inert object in respect to the vandalism. It’s just sitting there. It could be a statue, a tree, a totem pole or an infinite number of objects the owner has on his property. A vandal could get out of the car and wack on any of them until exhausted and the objects would not act as a booby trap. A video of someone doing this until the bat is shredded has been shown repeatedly in this thread. Are you going to blame the owner for the loss of the bat? No.
It’s the actions of the vandal. Add a car to the equation and the danger is increased by the driver. K.E. = 1/2 m v2. the mass is the bat, the speed is the person wielding it and it’s amplified by the driver of the car.
You’re getting mighty close to calling me a liar there. Just because you disagree with me (and everyone else in this thread), doesn’t make it a false statement. I content that it is inherently dangerous too break into someone else’s house. It may not be the exact kind of danger as mailbox baseball, but it’s still dangerous.
Can we agree that the illegality of the act (breaking/entering/vandalism) is irrelevant at least?
No, we cannot agree on that. It’s relevant if the act (criminal or not) is directly dangerous to the person committing the act. It is reflected in the legal concept of personal responsibility that I cited upthread. As an example, sticking a fork into an electrical socket would be considered dangerous and any injury would be attributed to the dangerous actions of the person doing it.
What the heck does sticking a fork in an electrical socket have to do with illegality?
But according to your theory, the homeowner did not detonate the bomb. It was the dangerous and illegal act of the kid hitting the mailbox that detonated the bomb. The dynamite was just sitting there and if not for the kid’s dangerous and illegal act, done of his own volition, there would be no explosion.
A couple of things to mention. I referred to your statement as false. It may or may not be a factual statement on your part (or mine) to weigh an action as definitely dangerous. It doesn’t make you a liar. It means I think the statement itself is wrong.
In a court of law it would be pretty easy to establish, as you just admitted, that mailbox baseball is a dangerous act. The prosecution must prove it’s not dangerous or liability falls on the person committing the act.
Cite?
honestly, that doesn’t make any sense at all. Clearly the bomb is a booby trap. It projects shrapnel out. A reniforced mailbox doesn’t do that. Any injury to someone is the result of the force of the person swinging that bat and that is added to by the speed of a car. THAT’S what causes the injury.
I already cited the court’s position on personal responsibility.
Okay, so we have yet another requirement that the shrapnel must be projected outward. Does your rule have so many (unsupported and uncited) exceptions that it only applies to concrete filled mailboxes?
And it is inconsistent with your statement of six minutes ago:
It’s an example of how the court views injury as a result of a person’s actions. It doesn’t have to be illegal. Any lawsuit against the power company would be measured against the actions of the injured person.
I’m not setting requirements on anything. I’ve stated that the mailbox is not a booby trap. It’s an inanimate object that does not engage a person in any way.
It is the direct actions of the vandal that would result in injury. Really, this isn’t a hard legal concept to grasp. It’s no different than driving a car into a tree. The tree does not cause the injury. It’s the car going into it that is the cause.
So is getting shot with a spring gun, and falling into a bamboo pit, and trespassing in a guy’s sleigh and getting bitten by his dog, and hitting a mailbox filled with dynamite.
You seem to disagree with these examples by saying that they aren’t “direct” as the homeowner did something else and that something else caused the injury. Yes, that’s the point.
In this case, he filled the box with concrete and created the difference in injury between hitting a regular mailbox and a concrete filled one—on purpose, knowing that kids were out hitting mailboxes: something that my cites and basic law says you cannot do to protect your property.
NO, it is not the action of the trespasser that results in the injury. How do you not understand this? Those are examples of booby traps. They actively engage in something dangerous.
And unlike your other examples, the mailbox is not the source of the injury. It’s the person striking it from a moving vehicle. You’ve admitted this was a dangerous thing to do. From a legal standpoint of personal responsibility that makes it the batter and the driver’s fault.
You are entitled to reinforce your property against vandalism. A steel door or reinforced glass is a common example. It’s not the owner’s fault if someone hurts themselves trying to break it down. There is no legal premise I’m aware of that a door or window be marked in anyway as to it’s destructibility.
At this point you need to cite the safety of mailbox baseball.
OMG! No one, let me repeat this, NO ONE in this thread has supported non-functional mailboxes. Nor have they supported spring guns, bamboo traps, bombs under welcome mats or anything else you can think of.
What we are saying is that a reinforced mailbox that is fully functional and built to prevent vandalism is not a trap. You continually ignore my citation of case law that states one factor that makes a “trap” illegal is the indiscriminate nature of it. A reinforced mailbox is not indiscriminate - it only potentially injures a person committing a crime, like if I put locking lugnuts on my car and a person jacks up my car to steal my tire and trying to torque my locknuts off rolls the car on themselves. That is not a trap.
What you have been describing in this thread seems more like an attractive nuisance than a booby trap.
Typically, the attractive nuisance doctrine has three components:
- The law doesn’t expect children to fully comprehend the dangers they may face.
- If you think children might come onto your property, the law places a special responsibility on you to prevent harm.
- If you fail to meet this responsibility, you will most likely be held liable for the child’s injuries.
If you make it look like a weak mailbox, and your intention is to hurt people, then you could be held liable for anyone hurt.
No, it’s been explained repeatedly why this is false. There is no premise for appearance of vulnerability. There is literally no way of presenting a mailbox so that it is unsafe to vandalize short of a billboard next to it. In the case of mailbox baseball the danger is created by the vandal and not the mailbox. The person swinging the bat and the driver will be held liable for any injuries incurred.
There is no safe way to strike an object from a moving car.