I can’t cite any medical studies, but I can’t see how not peeing would have any effect on this. The real issue is the osmotic gradient between the sodium diluted blood, and the sodium normal intercellular fluid. This womans brain swelled up a fatal amount.
I don’t practice tort law, and obviously it would depend on the law of the jurisdiction (in this case, California state law), but as a general rule, intention isn’t the issue - the tort of negligence depends on reasonable foreseeability of harm. I can see the argument that telling people to drink large quantities of water, and encouraging them not to excercise their normal bodily functions in response, can reasonably be foreseen to cause some harm. It may not have been known exactly what harm (for example, as a layman, I would likely have thought about damage to kidneys or bladder), but once you’re past the step of reasonable foreseeability of harm, liability may attach.
As well, there’s the factor of reliance. The participants in the contest may have had a reasonable expectation that the people organizing the contest would have taken steps to ensure it was safe, and relied on that expectation.
Finally, there’s the concept of the “attractive hazard.” Someone who creates a situation that is potentially hazardous and likely to attract people to it may have a greater obligation to ensure that it is safe. That’s why swimming pools need to be fenced, to ensure that kids won’t swim in them without proper supervision. The radio station created this situation, by offering a prize for certain conduct, and was doing it for a profit motive, to keep their own ratings up. That may qualify as an attractive hazard, making it easier for the estate to sue.
All of which is speculative, of course, based on hazy memories of tort law classes, and is not meant as legal advice, but just to contribute to a discussion on the workings of the legal system. Maybe someone knowledgeable about California tort law will come along – Campion, perhaps?
The lawsuit is to be filed soon: Family sues California radio station after woman dies.
The lawyer for the family is quoted as follows:
And the sheriff has opened an investigation into the matter, in light of the DJs’ on-air comments, including a flippant response to a caller who called in to alert them to the dangers of water intoxication: California sheriff investigates water-drinking death of radio station contestant:
If true, sounds like the radio staff were fully aware of the risks of what they were doing. Will be interesting to see if it’s sufficient for criminal charges.
Interesting; it sounds as if the DJs were well aware of the risks involved, and knew that a waiver had been required of the participant. I would love to see the waiver, and whether the waiver expressly stated that death could result from the contest. Presuming that the waiver did so – i.e., presuming that the decedent was fully informed of the dangers of her action, and signed a contract expressly assuming the risks of her actions (which risks she expressly acknowledged included death), and then waived her claims against the radio station – her estate will have some difficulties. (This is, of course, a huge assumption, but if the lawyers were involved to the extent of drafting a waiver, I’d like to hope it was a thorough waiver.)
Here is a good article about the basics of the situation. In my opinion, it’s mostly going to come down to the language of the waiver. If the waiver is thorough, indicates death is an option, and binds the heirs, then the settlement likely will be pretty small. If, on the other hand, the waiver isn’t as good, the station will pay significantly more money. I presume, by the way, that the station will try to settle, regardless of the merits of the claim, due to the adverse publicity engendered by this incident.
(I’ll also note that the cases involving assumption of the risk will be pretty easy to distinguish; they all come out of sporting events where the defendant would have no opportunity to, for example, move the tree out of the way of the skier, or stop the gust of wind that pushes the hanglider into the cliff. So given that, and given the publicity, her estate’s lawyer probably feels pretty confident in suing regardless of the merits.)
There’s never reason to refer to the .OH free radical?
IANA lawyer, but I would like to point out a couple of things. First, since swelling of the brain is the problem, any defense based on her actions and choices will be hard to make stick. Altered mental status and impaired judgement are EXPECTED symptoms of water intoxication. They are also early symptoms and can manifest in sub-lethal cases. Additionally, when she complains of troubling (to me) symptoms she’s told it’s “telling her to puke,” which is wrong, I would have been telling her to call 911.
So, we have a woman with impaired judgement, being given dangerously wrong information, I don’t think the wavers going to cut much ice.
Your statement is predicated on the unspoken assumption that she granted a waiver after she began the competition. If true, you’re correct that the waiver is suspect. However, if they asked competitors to sign a waiver only after permitting them to compete, the station was so monumentally stupid that they deserve not only to pay significant amounts of money, but frankly, their genes ought to be wiped out so that they don’t pass on that kind of stupid to another generation.
If you read the stories posted by Northern Piper, however, it is plain that the station required waivers before it would permit people to enter the competition. Thus, your position is untenable. We are all permitted to enter into contracts, even if we later lose our mental capacity.
Your other point – that she was given dangerously wrong information – lacks sufficient factual foundation for me either to agree or disagree. Without seeing the waiver and determining what she was told before she became irrational due to water consumption, we can’t know whether she was given dangerously wrong information. (I’ll note that you really can’t have it both ways – if she were so irrational due to water consumption that her judgment must be questioned, theoretically giving her wrong information at that point is irrelevant, since your position is that even if given the correct information, she was too impaired to act rationally.)
Sorry, but I’ll hold tight to my position – it all comes down to what the waiver says.
er, no, actually I wasn’t assuming that they signed the waivers later. I meant that a waiver or other set-up which assigns responsibility to the woman to discontinue if she feels her health is threatened is challengable if her judgement is reasonably expected to be impaired by the time her health is threatened.
I’m sorry, are you saying that you can’t figure out what name you’d use to refer to the free radical that has the same atoms as the hydroxide ion?
might you elaborate on this waiver thing? how dangerous an event can a person hold before waivers stop protecting him?
We’re all familiar with the scene in a movie or cartoon where Satan/Banker/Industrialist pulls out a signed contract and says, ‘You should have read… the fine print! Muwahahahahaha!’ ISTR one of the contestants in this game saying that they signed releases, but nobody read them. How binding is a release form that wasn’t read? On one hand, a contestant in a radio game has a reasonable expectation that they will come to no harm. (And for you pedants out there, ‘no harm’ means 'no serious harm. For example, bumps, bruises and scrapes may be expected in some physical games; but broken limbs, internal damage and death are not.) On the other hand, contestants are expected to read what they’re signing. A pro forma release is something people will sign without reading, or without understanding everything it says if they do read it, because a resonable person would not expect physical harm.
And what about the wording of the release? If it says ‘I hereby release the radio station from responsibility for any harm that comes to me from my participation in this contest’, that is very different from ‘This contest contains the risk of water intoxication, which may result in death, and I hereby release the radio station from responsibility for any harm that comes to me from my participation in this contest’. Would a reasonable person who has never heard of water intoxication understand what it is? If he or she signs the (lattery worded) release under the place where it says ‘I understand what I have read’ when he or she doesn’t understand it, perhaps believing he or she understood it but didn’t, does that still absolve the station of responsibility?
The waiver may or may not have something to do with the civil suit. But isn’t there a clear criminal charge to be brought against the people in charge of the contest, waiver or no waiver? They were witnessing what they knew, or reasonably should have known, to be serious life-threatening medical trauma, yet did not take appropriate actions in response.
-FrL-
It looks pretty bleak for the radio station so far:
The waiver may have had a general indemnity/hold harmless clause, but presently it seems as i there was nothing specific about the contest having the potential for resulting serious harm or death, and no information about hyponatremia was provided.
So it’s been asked several times with no answer- how much of a factor was not being allowed to pee?
“Acute renal insufficiency”, in which the person may be unable to excrete adequate amounts of free water, can play a significant role. (According to eMedicine.com).
Well, that affects fluid “above” the level of the kidney. If she had normal renal function before the contest started I doubt if not peeing had much of an effect. I’d be curious to know where the water was in her abdomen. There are several references to her looking pregnant, I wonder if that fluid was in her stomach or her bladder. If it’s in the stomach it’s not really “inside” yet, if it’s in the bladder it’s already “outside.”