Great moments in slip and fall claims is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“Portland’s First Mountain-Bike Park Could Be Crippled by a Court Decision” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

The Iowa spring gun case is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“Woman Stuck by Needle in Target Parking Lot Awarded $4.6M” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Teen shot by friend, survivors sue government is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Traditional Anglo-American law grants to a property owner as a matter of course not only the right to exclude guns, but also to ask of customers and other invitees that, as a condition of their visit, they agree to assume the risk of some “defensible hazards” contemplated by the law, such as harm occasioned by roaming wild animals. Is it too much to ask that gun advocates promote the actual rights prescribed by the Second Amendment against government infringement — which certainly could use promotion right now — rather than infringe traditional individual property and contract liberties by inventing spurious new gun “rights”? [Tennessean via Bearing Arms] Earlier on laws restricting property owners’ rights to set rules against guns in parking lots here, here, here, here, related Roger Pilon at Cato, and, also with coverage of “off-duty conduct” as a protected class in discrimination law, here.

Tennessee: “Bill allows suits over gun free zone incidents” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Jury agrees: crashes of cars into stores are stores’ fault is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

[On May 8,] the New Mexico Supreme Court decided in Rodriguez v. Del Sol Shopping Center that when a court decides whether a property owner has a duty to protect people from harm on the premises, the court must never consider whether the harm was foreseeable. PLF has long argued in premises liability cases that foreseeability cannot be dispositive, because the court must also consider the public policy considerations of imposing a duty to protect. The court’s holding that foreseeability must never be even a factor, however, sets it apart from every other court in the nation, to the detriment of New Mexican property owners and businesses….

This approach means that, as a practical matter, New Mexico courts can never dismiss a case on the grounds that the defendant owed no duty to the plaintiff. …This is a shocking departure from standard tort doctrine that squarely places upon courts the responsibility to determine the nature and extent of tort duties. All property owners and businesses in the state should be on notice that any accident, no matter how bizarre or unlikely, that occurs on their premises will almost certainly go to a jury – or settle.

Whole post here.

New Mexico blinkers itself to foreseeability is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Perhaps the most remarkable passage in the ABA Journal’s coverage:

An expert for Friedrich said an inspection should have revealed the “weak joint” in the chair blamed for the collapse and said it should be standard procedure for businesses to test chairs every six months, the court recounts. An expert for the law firm said the only test for defects in chairs is to sit in them, and no other test would have revealed the defect that caused the Friedrich accident. …

A dissenting judge would have upheld the directed verdict against Friedrich. Even if the jury agreed that businesses should inspect chairs every six months, the dissenting judge said, there was insufficient evidence to prove that an inspection would have revealed the defect in the chair at issue.

Commenter DKJA at the ABA Journal writes:

So every business in Florida now has to “inspect” every piece of furniture every six months in perpetuity?

Maybe we should just replace all furniture with beanbag chairs. Although I’m sure someone would figure out how to injure themselves on one of them as well.

Update: $2.2 M verdict reinstated for client whose chair collapsed at law firm is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Do commercial property owners have a duty to keep defibrillators on site? is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system