In 1970, when I was 20, we lived in a two-story house, about 50 years old then, in Hermosa Beach, CA. My sister and I were the only ones at home when a county agent came by with packets of rat poison. He came into the house–we understood the law authorized him to–and he put the poison, which looked something like Cheerios, behind the access doors for the bathtubs in both bathrooms. No big deal, right? However, a few weeks later, after my stepfather had a plumber friend of his work on the pipes, my 4-year-old cousin suffered convulsions, as it turned out, from eating some of the poison. It seems the plumber didn’t put the access door back right after working on that bathtub. The boy’s parents were outraged and prepared to sue the plumber (my stepfather didn’t like this, because the plumber was a drinking buddy of his.)
It’s moot now, but–could the plumber have been liable? Or the county agent or his agency?
Anyone involved could have been held liable – the plumber, the county, the agent who put the poison there, your stepfather, the rat poison manufacturer, and many, many more.(Though it’s possible that the county and its agent were exempt by law.)
The only way to tell who actually was liable would be to sue and see what a jury said. The plaintiff would name who they thought was liable, and there’s no real limit on who they can decide to sue.
“What we have here is failure to communicate.” – Strother Martin, anticipating the Internet.
Do you mean there’s no restriction on who they can sue, or that they can sue as many people as they want, until they get a settlement? I was under the impression that you can only bring one lawsuit for a particular grievance, and if you get nothing, you can appeal, but you can’t sue someone else.
Remember, I’m pulling for you; we’re all in this together.
—Red Green
oh no, it happens all the time on Judge Judy. Someone will come to court and judge judy will tell them they are sueing the wrong person and dismiss it without prejudice so they can refill the suit (?) with the correct defendants.
Yea but if no one died there would be mass over population much worse than it allready is, hopefully soon you will have to take a test to live.
Let’s see 50 years ago is 1950 things were mighty different back then.
They would’ve said they desire to kill rats is more important than one little girl
Generally, the lawsuit would be filed initially naming all of possible defendants. That consolidates legal costs, AND means that if all are found liable, that the entire verdict gets paid, even if one or two individuals don’t have the assets to cover their share of the decision. (Deep pockets principle, where whoever can afford to pay must pay, even if their culpability was minor)
However, there is nothing (short of finding an attorney to take a case that has already been lost once) to prevent a claimant from pursuing sequential lawsuits against various individuals for a single action.
Sue from El Paso
Siamese Attack Puppet - Texas
Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.
Yup. Civil law (as I understand it – I Am Not A Lawyer) is a pretty strange beast. A litigant can sue anybody or any organization for any reason, as long as it can be claimed that there were damages. I could sue my wife, who is whistling “The Streets of Laredo” in the other room right now, for causing me mental anguish (She does it a lot, and it does get a little annoying sometimes, since she doesn’t have an especially good sense of pitch), but it’d probably be pretty hard to find a lawyer to represent me. And, realistically, it’s not all that much anguish, since I’ve learned to pretty much ignore it.
I mind me a story I heard once (warning: veracity unconfimed!) of a woman who sued everybody around her, all the time, for trivial things (neighbor’s dog barked too much [lost sleep], another neighbor parked his car across the sidewalk instead of completely in the driveway [degrading property values], and so on), and was eventually declared to be an abusive litigant by the state of California. Now, she is barred from filing lawsuits without a judge’s permission.
A committee is a lifeform with six or more legs and no brain.
A few corrections, Marxxx:
My cousin (the little kid) was a boy. (He is still alive today., :))
The house was about 50 years old in 1970, being built around 1922.
Another matter: I didn’t mention this earlier–not that it would have mattered in 1970, since I didn’t know about it then–is this statute, Section 1714 of the California Civil Code, enacted in 1872 and still the law:
“Everyone is liable, not only for damages arising from his willful act, but for omission [some wording omitted here], except so far as [the person damaged] has, by his own act or omission, brought the matter on himself.”
I add this here because it may very well have figured, had my cousin and his wife (the parents of the poisoned boy) seen fit to pursue the matter in court.