Comments on: January 29 roundup

By: JHS

JHS — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 07:32:29 +0000

Regarding the settlement to the Syrian national, if I were a Canadian I would be very very angry about this. Essentially, Canadian taxpayers are reimbursing a man for torture that Syria did. How is that fair? Of course, I doubt that the man could get recompense from Syria, (although that would put him on an equal footing with Syria’s other torture victims) but at least Canada should have put some kind of demand to Syria, an apology at the very least, instead of blaiming the US for it(which is how all the news reports of this read).

By: jb

jb — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 23:52:11 +0000

If I was running a contest wherein people held their hands on a car for an indefinite period, and in the past people had done so until they wandered off insensible, I’d totally expect a lawsuit, frivolous or not. In this legal climate, I don’t understand how businesses run these, given that they’re likely to be sued and, even if the suit is frivolous, have to pay lawyers to make it go away.

By: David Nieporent

David Nieporent — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 15:22:50 +0000

JB, you’re right as far as the water intoxication case. But the problem with your argument as far as the Hardbody contest is that the lawsuit is entirely frivolous, and should be (but won’t be) sanctionable. You can’t stop holding contests to be safe from lawsuits; to avoid being sued on grounds such as those, one would have to shut down one’s business entirely.

By: jb

jb — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 11:39:45 +0000

Concerning the “hands on a hardbody,” and previously the water intoxication case, I’m wondering how these contests still happen. Don’t the contest-runners read blogs like this? Right or not, it seems to me that a suit like this was inevitable at some point for some reason.