Law Friday

Talking the Talk - What is a tort anyway?
This is the most frequently asked question posed after I tell people what classes a 1L takes. Unfortunately, it’s not a class about the legal implications of delicious thin-crust pastries. That class would be called Tarts. Rather, a tort is a kick in the face, a breath mint made of cat food, everything you don’t want happening to you. In two words, a tort is any wrong, and the legal system tries to make it right. (Note, these wrongs are distinct from criminal cases, in which the government tries to make right.)

One of the most infamous torts occurred in the McDonald’s coffee case. While many people see this as just another example of a legal system that rewards frivolous lawsuits with big bucks, consider the facts…

A 79-year-old woman visits the McDonald’s drive through and spills a freshly purchased cup of joe on herself. The coffee was so incredibly hot that she suffered third-degree burns (that means that the burn extended to the tissue under the skin) on more than six percent of her body (including some of her - ahem - sensitive parts). She was hospitalized for eight days and had to endure skin grafting. Yuck!

Okay, so she was hurt pretty badly, but why did this woman have a case? Well, between 1982 and 1992, some 700 coffee-burn tort claims had been filed against McDonald’s. Yet despite this fact, McDonald’s routinely served its coffee excessively hot. Hence, the jury awarded the woman $200,000 in compensatory damages (paid to compensate the victim for medical bills and other costs of the injury) and $2.7 million in punitive damages (equal to about two days of McDonald’s coffee sales). In the end, the jury reduced the compensatory award to $160,000, since they figured the woman was 20 percent at fault, and the punitive damages to $480,000 (hardly a day’s worth of McDonald’s coffee sales).

Hearsay
Last year Slate published a top 10 list of Bush’s worst civil-liberties violations. This week, they’ve published Bush’s top 10 legal fictions. My personal favorites are number 8, which is Cheney’s retarded claim that his office isn’t part of the executive branch, and number 4, celebrating nine U.S. attorneys who were “fired by nobody, but for good reason.”

Not strictly law related, but interesting nonetheless - the Society of Jesus is meeting in Rome this week for the first time in 25 years to elect a new Superior General. (As you may know, Seattle University School of Law is a Jesuit institution.) The Jesuit General is elected for life, so the forthcoming General Congregation, the 35th in the Society’s 468-year history, will first have to accept Fr Kolvenbach’s resignation before choosing a successor.

You be the Judge - It’s all fun and games until someone gets kicked in the shin
Sticking with the torts theme, here’s the first case we read last semester.

While sitting in class, Timmy leans over and kicks Kenny in the shin. What Timmy doesn’t realize is that Kenny has a hideous shin condition. Timmy’s kick aggravates said shin condition, and Kenny ends up having his lower leg amputated. Kenny sues Timmy for assault and battery. Should Timmy have to pay up?

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