From this story
Can this possible be true? And if so, why would they be any more liable for a car hitting a boulder on their property than a car hitting their house?
Maybe they wanted to put it too close to the street.
The house has a right to be placed there while the boulder does not. I’m wording that badly, but that’s how it was explained to me by a lawyer once. Your house is an integral part of the property, so anyone who jumps the curb and hits the house will just have to suck it up. But if the landowner moves a boulder into a position it didn’t naturally lay in, they become potentially liable for damage when said lousy driver hits it.
How about if they build a patio out that far, and use boulders as the supports? Would that then qualify as part enough of the house that the homeowners aren’t liable if somebody runs into it?
eta Having looked at the picture, I think they should just rebuild out of boulders.
Sounds like a steaming heap to me (with all due respect to silenus).
Unless there’s something weird about PA tort law that would make these people’s front yard some kind of “traditional path for motor vehicles” or something, the homeowner would have every right to collect damages from the driver if the rock were defaced by a collision–provided the rock is entirely on the property and not unreasonably close to the street.
The idea that a homeowner would owe damage to a driver who struck a non-moving object that was not in the roadway is absurd on its face. Citation of a jury instruction or local statute to the contrary would be an appropriate rebuttal.
I’m not sure that applies to all situations though. Suppose a homeowner purposefully planted rebar iron in the ground at window level facing the likely path of a car, and a car lost control and hit it, impaling the driver and/or passengers. While I don’t know what the results of that case even should be, if it were up to me the victims of my hypothetical should at least be allowed to sue as the homeowner showed a reckless indifference to human life. Sort of like a mantrap that injures non-trespassers such as meter readers or postal workers.
So they’re gonna put a object on their property they know will cause significant damage to a vehicle and personal injury to the occupants, in an area of their property they know to have vehicles regularly travel?
I’m not saying it’s fair but you could make the argument that they intentionally created a dangerous hazard.
I don’t know if it applies to any or all areas, but the reasoning I’ve heard in the past is that placing boulders or bollards is tantamount to admitting that your property is dangerous.
I get why that might be legally, but I’ve seen local government put up bollards or other types of barriers to stop traffic from hitting government buildings. Not sure why they can do it but we can’t, as long as the intention is to protect property from an errant driver and not to inflict intentional harm.
How about businesses that have concrete poles in front of the entrance for the sole purpose of keeping vehicles from hitting the doors either accidentaly or purposefully. Are they liable if someone loses control and hits them?
What if a car hit’s your mailbox? Many mailboxes are right at the edge of the road; one could argue dangerously so. A car could jump the curb a little bit and (depending on your mailbox) suffer quite a bit of damage. I’ve seen ones that are mounted in a brick pillar that could stop a car dead.
There are laws for how close to the property line one can place structures, or even boulders: minimum setback requirements.
This, and from the article it sounds like the building of the bridge should has included a barrier to prevent these accidents. 3 times in 6 months is ridiculous, and makes it only a matter of time before one the residents is injured.
Why shouldn’t this argument be changed to the following:
So they’re gonna put a object on their property they know will [DEL]cause significant damage to[/DEL] stop a vehicle from causing significant damage to their property and possible personal injury to [DEL]the occupants[/DEL] the occupants dwelling within that property, in an area of their property they know to have vehicles regularly travel?
I suspect, Bootis, that you don’t get to make your argument because there is a near certainty that the vehicle passengers are going to be seriously injured by your boulder, and there’s far less chance that the homeowner will be injured.
A boulder can practically be considered a booby-trap in this circumstance. People are regularly having accidents on his lawn, you can’t stick up a massive hazard in that path. What should happen is the town put up appropriate signage, safe barriers, speed bumps, rumble strips to prevent the accidents, rather than a brick wall to kill people unlucky enough to have an accident.
I’m no lwayer but I was just thinking…
what if you replace “boulder” with “several rows of dense bushes” - OK now?
How about if they just put in a ramp that allows cars going over double the speed limit to sail on into the next property?
With boulders hidden in them.
Yeah. It’s like if I’m constantly being run into while walking on the sidewalk by bicyclists illegally and carelessly riding on the sidewalk, I’m still not allowed to enclose myself in a portable cage of pointy spikes to impale the bicyclists before they can hit me.
Obstacles that have no other purpose except to cause dangerous impacts, even if they’re only used to obstruct people who are illegally heading toward a different dangerous impact, fall into the category of booby traps. Booby traps are generally illegal (and dangerous) even if they’re non-maliciously meant to discourage illegal and dangerous acts by others.
If the road safety is egregiously bad enough, I would think the homeowners in this case would have a good case for suing the town.
The article states that emergency workers said the driver hitting the homeowners’ parked car is what saved his life, and that hitting a boulder would have saved him as well. I agree that placing a booby trap should be illegal, but if the boulder protects life and property of the homeowners without increasing danger for drivers, then it should be allowed, right?
In any case, Easton Township should be bending over backwards to remedy this situation before someone is killed and they get sued back into being a village.