Legal Questions: I believe the problem is that they need a well, actually

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Legal Questions: I believe the problem is that they need a well, actually

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daslog: Dec 10, 2008; #essereFerrari

What if she was patient Zero and infected the entire state of Florida leading to 50,000 deaths. Would the company be liable for all of those deaths too?

# ? Jul 1, 2021 17:52

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# ? Jun 6, 2024 16:18

Alchenar: Apr 9, 2008

Louisgod posted:

How often is a decision made on "well if we approve this it means others will bring forth similar lawsuits!" because this seems dumb as hell

It's rare and a last-ditch defence, but 'allowing this claim will cause a chain reaction of new litigation that will suddenly make people liable for hundreds of thousands of dollars of unexpected claims' is a real thing.

Courts are supposed to keep things stable and predictable, if creating a new rule would crash the economy then they're expected to punt the issue to legislators.

# ? Jul 1, 2021 18:31

evilweasel: Aug 24, 2002

Louisgod posted:

How often is a decision made on "well if we approve this it means others will bring forth similar lawsuits!" because this seems dumb as hell

https://twitter.com/MMNonMeansTV/status/1410594016626982912?s=20

there are a lot of legal doctrines based entirely on "this doesn't really seem fair, but if we allow people to sue for this there will be way too many lawsuits to handle so we're gonna say you can't sue for this"

for example, in many states, consider the following: a factory causes a significant disaster, wiping out much of a town. you are a pizza seller, your pizza shop was not at all directly damaged. however, all your customers are dead or fled. you sue the factory for those lost profits. in most states, you lose - you cannot collect economic damages when you suffered no physical damages. however, consider an alternative fact pattern: your front windows were shattered in the blast. you sue for the windows and all your lost profits (not just from the window, from the factory wiping out your customers). in most (if not all) of those previous states you win on both.

states where this is the rule don't pretend that is a fair and moral line to draw - it's purely a "we gotta cut off liability somewhere, let's do it here" rule

evilweasel fucked around with this message at 18:46 on Jul 1, 2021

# ? Jul 1, 2021 18:43

Phil Moscowitz: Feb 19, 2007; If blood be the price of admiralty,
Lord God, we ha' paid in full!

Same as mental anguish for people not at the scene of an injury or death. Of course people are affected by the death of a family member�it�s traumatic! But in a lot of jurisdictions unless you were in the immediate vicinity, and saw the person killed or were almost hurt yourself, you can�t make a claim for that mental suffering.

# ? Jul 1, 2021 18:56

ulmont: Sep 15, 2010; IF I EVER MISS VOTING IN AN ELECTION (EVEN AMERICAN IDOL) ,OR HAVE UNPAID PARKING TICKETS, PLEASE TAKE AWAY MY FRANCHISE

The opinion is linked below. The key fact is that the plaintiff made a negligence claim. You can�t be negligent unless you didn�t do something you were supposed to do, i.e. neglected a duty owed to the injured party. This is complicated for a party later in the chain of screwups. The judge ultimately concluded Maryland would say �Southwest owed no duty to the husband, ergo no negligence claim for the husband.� As you can see discussed, this is explicitly a policy judgment call under Maryland law.

quote:

To state a claim for negligence in Maryland, a complaint must plausibly allege the following four elements: (1) that the defendant owed a duty to the person who was injured; (2) that the defendant breached that duty; (3) that an actual injury or loss existed; and (4) that the injury or loss proximately resulted from the defendant�s breach of the duty.... The parties disagree, here, as to the first, threshold factor�whether Southwest owed a duty to Mr. Madden, given that he was not a Southwest employee and otherwise had no relationship with the company beyond his wife�s employment. �[T]he existence of a legal duty is a question of law to be decided by the court.� For the following reasons, the Court concludes that no duty existed, such that Plaintiffs have failed to state any negligence-based claims.

The parties dispute the proper framework for assessing the existence of a duty in Maryland. Southwest argues that this case is covered by a bright line rule, namely Maryland�s alleged refusal to recognize any duty on the part of an employer to an employee�s spouse in the context of �takehome� exposure to diseases and dangerous substances absent one of three exceptions not present here: a special relationship, control, or a relevant statute. Analyzing asbestos, HIV, and other similar cases in which an employer�s alleged negligence resulted in an employee bringing a harm home from work which injured the employee�s spouse, Southwest asserts that these cases� uniform finding of �no duty� are directly applicable and end the duty inquiry without further analysis.

Plaintiffs, on the other hand, suggest that Southwest�s case law is distinguishable by virtue of those cases� focus on nonfeasance (as opposed to the malfeasance allegedly at issue here). Instead, Plaintiffs urge the assessment of seven factors some Maryland courts have used to identify the existence of a duty.

In fact, Maryland�s duty analysis appears to lie somewhere in between the two parties� positions.�As such, the Court will follow the Sumo Court�s lead and will assess whether Southwest owed a duty under both the seven-factor and the �no third-party duty� approaches.
�
There are three exceptions, however, to this �no duty� rule:
(1) If the defendant has control over the conduct of the third party;
(2) If there is a special relationship between the defendant and the third party or between the defendant and the plaintiff; or
(3) If there is a statute or ordinance that is designed to protect a specific class of people.

None of these three enumerated exceptions apply in this case. Plaintiffs do not argue that Southwest had control over Ms. Madden after she left the flight attendant training, nor do they argue that it had a special relationship with Mr. or Ms. Madden [fn1: The employment relationship here between Southwest and Ms. Madden is not a �special relationship� that would give rise to a duty to Mr. Madden, because Ms. Madden was operating outside the scope of her employment when she returned home post-training], or that a statute governed its conduct in this area protecting third parties like Mr. Madden....under the standard approach, Southwest owed Mr. Madden no duty.

The Court next assesses this case under Plaintiffs� preferred seven-factor test for duty, which consists of the following:
(1) the foreseeability of harm to the plaintiff,
(2) the degree of certainty that the plaintiff suffered the injury,
(3) the closeness of the connection between the defendant�s conduct and the injury,
(4) the moral blame attached to the defendant�s conduct,
(5) the policy of preventing future harm,
(6) the extent of the burden to the defendant and consequences to the community of imposing a duty to exercise reasonable care with resulting liability for breach,
(7) and the availability, cost and prevalence of insurance for the risk involved.

[1] Here, the question is whether it was foreseeable to Southwest, and not unreasonably remote, that as a result of its allegedly unsafe flight attendant training in the midst of a global pandemic, one training attendee would contract COVID-19 and fatally infect her spouse with it. Based on the facts as presently alleged, such an outcome is both foreseeable and not unreasonably remote.
�
[2] This second factor is, functionally, a causal inquiry�how certain is it that Southwest�s actions would cause Plaintiffs� injuries?...there is a substantial degree of uncertainty that the Southwest�s training would be reasonably certain to cause any third-party non-attendee to contract COVID-19, such that this factor weighs against imposition of a duty.
�
[3] the chain of events leading from the training to Ms. Madden�s infection at that training to her close contact with Mr. Madden to his subsequent infection and death is foreseeable. Ultimately, the likelihood that a flight attendant would contract COVID-19 at an unsafe, in-person training during a pandemic, and then transmit it to her co-habitant spouse, is �not so remote that we simply foreclose liability,� Therefore, this factor also weighs in Plaintiffs� favor.
�
[4] The reasonable reaction to a global pandemic would be to take all necessary precautions when holding in-person gatherings, particularly in the context of a flight attendant training requiring close proximity of the trainees to one another and the shared handling of equipment required by the various training exercises...To allegedly disregard these protocols and hold an in-person training without adequate safety precautions, in the midst of a global pandemic taking hundreds of thousands of lives across the United States, is morally blameworthy. This factor therefore weighs in favor of imposing a duty.
�
[5] It would appear uncontroversial to suggest that stopping the spread of COVID-19 is an important policy goal, and the existence of a duty would unmistakably further that goal by preventing first order infections of employees and therefore protecting against later spread to third parties. This factor therefore also weighs in favor of a duty
�
[6] As Southwest points out, Maryland courts have historically been exceedingly concerned about �opening the floodgates� to expansive new classes of third-party plaintiffs. Maryland courts have furthermore expressed this concern specifically in the context of possible duties owed by an employer to an employee�s spouse...Would Southwest be liable to everyone in Ms. Madden�s hypothetical apartment building? What about essential outings like trips to the grocery store or, similarly, a bathroom break during Mr. and Ms. Madden�s drive from BWI to Pennsylvania following the training? Any suggested limitation on the class of foreseeable third-party plaintiffs achieved by drawing the line at adherence to regulatory guidance and following safety protocols is of little practical use, given the many circumstances in which contact both falls within the guidelines and implicates an exceedingly broad cross-section of the public at large. The �floodgates� consequence of imposing a duty here therefore weighs against such an imposition.
�
[7] The parties spend little time on this factor.
�
Taking stock of the foregoing factors, four of the seven weigh in favor of finding a duty, while two weigh against it (and the last, insurance, was not considered at all). This case, then, does not provide the sort of clear-cut outcome that Sumo reached, leaving the Court to balance the factors against one another.
�
Cumulatively, Maryland�s third-party duty case law and its emphasis on limiting the class of prospective future plaintiffs heavily informs the Court�s balancing. In fact, it is the dispositive weight on the scale in favor of finding �no duty� here, despite the fact that the narrow majority of factors, including foreseeability, favor imposition of a duty. Maryland courts have made their priorities with regard to third-party duties clear, and the prospect of an unstemmed and ill-defined tide of third-party plaintiffs bringing suit predominates the duty analysis. Thus, Plaintiffs� proposed seven-factor balancing test and Southwest�s proffered bright line �no third-party duty� rule are, as in Sumo and Kiriakos, �consonant� with one another�Southwest owed no duty to Mr. Madden.
�
For the reasons set forth above, Southwest�s Motion to Dismiss is GRANTED and Plaintiffs� claims are dismissed without prejudice.

https://www.insurancejournal.com/app/uploads/2021/06/madden-v-southwest-ruling.pdf

# ? Jul 1, 2021 18:57

Phil Moscowitz: Feb 19, 2007; If blood be the price of admiralty,
Lord God, we ha' paid in full!

Yeah that�s a normal dismissal then, not because �it will open the door to litigation.� Though the dicta might be that this result is correct because ruling otherwise might open to door to other legally baseless claims.

# ? Jul 1, 2021 19:00

Louisgod: Sep 25, 2003; Always Watching; Bread Liar

Cool thanks all, was curious of the justification and it makes sense.

# ? Jul 1, 2021 19:06

BonerGhost: Mar 9, 2007

That's some poo poo that loss of consortium requires both spouses to still be alive.

# ? Jul 1, 2021 19:34

Devor: Nov 30, 2004; Lurking more.

BonerGhost posted:

That's some poo poo that loss of consortium requires both spouses to still be alive.

Just another example of discrimination against wights

# ? Jul 1, 2021 19:43

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Devor posted:

Just another example of discrimination against wights

if your spouse is a wight you are legally free to get a new spouse

it's wight privilege

# ? Jul 1, 2021 19:46

Captain von Trapp: Jan 23, 2006; I don't like it, and I'm sorry I ever had anything to do with it.

homullus posted:

if your spouse is a wight you are legally free to get a new spouse

it's wight privilege

# ? Jul 1, 2021 19:49

blarzgh: Apr 14, 2009; SNITCHIN' RANDY; Grimey Drawer

Louisgod posted:

Cool thanks all, was curious of the justification and it makes sense.

SOMEBODY HASN'T BRIEFED PENNOYER

# ? Jul 1, 2021 20:57

Phil Moscowitz: Feb 19, 2007; If blood be the price of admiralty,
Lord God, we ha' paid in full!

Time for me to post my favorite loss of consortium deposition colloquy

Phil Moscowitz posted:

I LOVE MY JOB ESPECIALLY ASKING 80 YEAR OLD DUDES ABOUT THEY DICK IN FRONT OF THEY WIFE

# ? Jul 2, 2021 00:30

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

Phil Moscowitz posted:

Same as mental anguish for people not at the scene of an injury or death. Of course people are affected by the death of a family member�it�s traumatic! But in a lot of jurisdictions unless you were in the immediate vicinity, and saw the person killed or were almost hurt yourself, you can�t make a claim for that mental suffering.

Don't forget about loss of consortium, which is fun because sex.

edit: mother fucker.

# ? Jul 2, 2021 08:02

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

I fell down a rabbit hole watching sovereign citizen videos. Don't worry, I'm not going to ask you to explain their insane theories.

Something I've seen a lot of these people do is "conducting First Amendment audits" where they go into some government building--DMV, post office, police station--and basically film themselves bothering people and wasting their time. Often they're told that it's illegal to record A/V in a government building, asked to leave, and eventually forced out or arrested.

Is it actually illegal to record video inside a government building? If so, to what levels of government does that apply? I know you can't bring your camera into a courtroom, but what about filming inside city hall or the Department of Health building or whatever?

I work for a public university and our building is usually open to the public. If someone wanted to just stand in front of my desk filming me all day, do I have to allow that? What if they want to call me names or whatever? At what point does "bothering someone" become tortious or criminal?

Unfortunately, I've had to call university police to issue a no-trespass order on someone who wouldn't stop coming in, going to people's offices, and bothering them. The question of the man's civil rights vis-a-vis public property never came into it.

# ? Jul 2, 2021 18:15

FrozenVent: May 1, 2009; The Boeing 737-200QC is the undisputed workhorse of the skies.

Just because it�s government owned doesn�t mean you can�t deny someone access.

See, for example, Area 51.

# ? Jul 2, 2021 18:19

Phil Moscowitz: Feb 19, 2007; If blood be the price of admiralty,
Lord God, we ha' paid in full!

Every right in the constitution can be limited and there are complex standards set out by decades of case law addressing how, when, and to what degree such limitations are permitted.

# ? Jul 2, 2021 18:24

Carillon: May 9, 2014

Phil Moscowitz posted:

Every right in the constitution can be limited and there are complex standards set out by decades of case law addressing how, when, and to what degree such limitations are permitted.

I thought the law was just magic words and once I said first amendment they had to remove the gold fringe and let me do what I want. Is that not how it works??

# ? Jul 2, 2021 19:11

Volmarias: Dec 31, 2002; EMAIL... THE INTERNET... SEARCH ENGINES...

Carillon posted:

I thought the law was just magic words and once I said first amendment they had to remove the gold fringe and let me do what I want. Is that not how it works??

I tried this with my mask exemption card and that didn't work either

# ? Jul 2, 2021 19:27

Nonexistence: Jan 6, 2014

I once got to bust a sov cit for practicing law without a license, that was fun.

Tip off was one of his "clients" said something to a colleague to the effect of "he's great, he's superceding state law on my case with some law of man type stuff!"

Basically he would just get unsophisticated people with gripes against the government or small claims and charge them an hourly to watch him overdramatically call various courts and county agencies and spew sovcit nonsense at them in an "I'm an aggressive lawyer I will fight for you" sort of way until they hung up. He'd then string people along on promises that these were even further compensable violations of their rights.

# ? Jul 2, 2021 19:44

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

The thing I will never understand about these people is...let's say, for the sake of argument, that the federal and state government is actually just a corporation or a criminal conspiracy or whatever. (As a communist, I'm broadly sympathetic to the idea.) What makes them think that if they follow the right procedures and say the right words and avoid saying the wrong ones, that a cop or a judge is going to go "Welp, you got me! You don't have to be licensed, insured, or sober to drive, I mean travel! Sorry about that, Cooter of the family Smith!" However illegitimate you think the government is, it very clearly has the ability to enforce the laws it makes.

# ? Jul 2, 2021 20:31

Grip it and rip it: Apr 28, 2020

They're morons, OP. All they understand is 50,000 Volts delivered directly to their torso

# ? Jul 2, 2021 20:37

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

Halloween Jack posted:

However illegitimate you think the government is, it very clearly has the ability to enforce the laws it makes.

I mean, it doesn't. It very clearly doesn't. Look at Bill Cosby, or Donald Trump, or Jon Corzine, etc. Hell, go full out, look at Jeffrey Epstein.

A lot of people grow up thinking we have a fair system and if you work hard and obey the rules and do what you're told you'll get ahead.

Then the system randomly crushes their dreams for no reason or for a bad reason and they look around them and they see that the system is very clearly rigged, but they don't have the education or intellect to figure out how it's rigged -- and anyway "being rich already" isn't an answer that can help them -- so they latch onto alternate explanations that feel believable and help them believe, ok, the system isn't fair, but at least if you say the right set of magic words it can be unfair in your favor for once.

# ? Jul 2, 2021 20:42

pseudanonymous: Aug 30, 2008; When you make the second entry and the debits and credits balance, and you blow them to hell.

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

I mean, it doesn't. It very clearly doesn't. Look at Bill Cosby, or Donald Trump, or Jon Corzine, etc. Hell, go full out, look at Jeffrey Epstein.

A lot of people grow up thinking we have a fair system and if you work hard and obey the rules and do what you're told you'll get ahead.

Then the system randomly crushes their dreams for no reason or for a bad reason and they look around them and they see that the system is very clearly rigged, but they don't have the education or intellect to figure out how it's rigged -- and anyway "being rich already" isn't an answer that can help them -- so they latch onto alternate explanations that feel believable and help them believe, ok, the system isn't fair, but at least if you say the right set of magic words it can be unfair in your favor for once.

Americans are weirdly stupid about the system, a lot of them know it's rigged, but when you suggest things like "the rich paying, well, not their fair share, but you know, something" they say poo poo but what about when I get rich? What if i win the lottery? They don't even want a fair system, they just want to be the ones the system is unfair for.

# ? Jul 2, 2021 21:23

Foxfire_: Nov 8, 2010

Halloween Jack posted:

What makes them think that if they follow the right procedures and say the right words and avoid saying the wrong ones, that a cop or a judge is going to go "Welp, you got me! You don't have to be licensed, insured, or sober to drive, I mean travel! Sorry about that, Cooter of the family Smith!"

Because the alternative is accepting that they're hosed and looking at big fines/jail time/no driving/no guns. Then once they've started to buy in, backpedalling instead of doubling down means admitting they believed in something obviously stupid

# ? Jul 2, 2021 21:31

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

That makes a lot of sense. OPCA schemes mostly target desperate people in bad situations.

That said, I've also seen sovcits take these, uh, methods and actively go looking for confrontations in various ways. I guess they can be written off as just genuinely mentally disturbed.

# ? Jul 2, 2021 21:39

Javid: Oct 21, 2004

Didn't the first wave of sovcit defendants ended up walking because the court had no loving idea what to do with them or the arguments they presented? Granted everyone's familiar with them now but it did objectively work for a number of people early on as a novel variant of the chewbacca defense

# ? Jul 2, 2021 22:33

Motronic: Nov 6, 2009

Where's the opinon that judge wrote that just absolutely destroyed the claims the sovcit was making? Like, not just a regular one, there was one where you could feel the disdain dripping off of the page.

# ? Jul 2, 2021 22:37

euphronius: Feb 18, 2009

Edit

I misremembered badly

# ? Jul 2, 2021 22:38

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

Javid posted:

Didn't the first wave of sovcit defendants ended up walking because the court had no loving idea what to do with them or the arguments they presented? Granted everyone's familiar with them now but it did objectively work for a number of people early on as a novel variant of the chewbacca defense

No, there are tax decisions going back decades demolishing this poo poo even in the pre-internet era.

The problem is it always works for a while because the legal system is slow and throwing a bunch of bullshit at it delays things. So each "generation" of sovcits gets away with it for long enough to recruit followers and go "It worked for me!" before they get brought down, then the people they "taught" do the same thing, etc. The OODA loop for sovcits is faster than the OODA loop for the government.

# ? Jul 2, 2021 22:44

Space Gopher: Jul 31, 2006; BLITHERING IDIOT AND HARDCORE DURIAN APOLOGIST. LET ME TELL YOU WHY THIS SHIT DON'T STINK EVEN THOUGH WE ALL KNOW IT DOES BECAUSE I'M SUPER CULTURED.

Motronic posted:

Where's the opinon that judge wrote that just absolutely destroyed the claims the sovcit was making? Like, not just a regular one, there was one where you could feel the disdain dripping off of the page.

You might be thinking of this Canadian decision: https://www.canlii.org/en/ab/abqb/doc/2012/2012abqb571/2012abqb571.html

The judge basically took a random sovcit case and used it as a jumping off point to write 140 exhaustively sourced pages on pseudolegal arguments, with the specific case as a kind of case study on the general phenomenon.

quote:

The bluntly idiotic substance of Mr. Mead�s argument explains the unnecessarily complicated manner in which it was presented. OPCA arguments are never sold to their customers as simple ideas, but instead are byzantine schemes which more closely resemble the plot of a dark fantasy novel than anything else. Latin maxims and powerful sounding language are often used. Documents are often ornamented with many strange marking and seals. Litigants engage in peculiar, ritual‑like in court conduct. All these features appear necessary for gurus to market OPCA schemes to their often desperate, ill‑informed, mentally disturbed, or legally abusive customers. This is crucial to understand the non-substance of any OPCA concept or strategy. The story and process of a OPCA scheme is not intended to impress or convince the Courts, but rather to impress the guru�s customer.

# ? Jul 2, 2021 22:52

euphronius: Feb 18, 2009

It was Canadian !! I remembered right !!

# ? Jul 2, 2021 22:53

Motronic: Nov 6, 2009

Space Gopher posted:

You might be thinking of this Canadian decision: https://www.canlii.org/en/ab/abqb/doc/2012/2012abqb571/2012abqb571.html

The judge basically took a random sovcit case and used it as a jumping off point to write 140 exhaustively sourced pages on pseudolegal arguments, with the specific case as a kind of case study on the general phenomenon.

Gaddmn that is absolutely the one. Thank you.

# ? Jul 2, 2021 23:07

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

So stupid that even a Canadian lawyer can't be nice about it.

# ? Jul 2, 2021 23:32

Ham Equity: Apr 16, 2013; The first thing we do, let's kill all the cars.; Grimey Drawer

Phil Moscowitz posted:

Time for me to post my favorite loss of consortium deposition colloquy

About how many decades younger than the guy was the wife?

There was an attorney defending a loss of consortium case at a firm I worked at, and the dude kept trying to "I don't know" her as she was asking questions about his sex life before and after; his problem was probably two-fold, in that he was a chiropractor specializing in sex therapy who had testified as an expert witness in multiple cases (so "I don't know" didn't take cut it), and she was a ridiculously attractive woman, which I would guess greatly added to his discomfort.

# ? Jul 3, 2021 00:37

blarzgh: Apr 14, 2009; SNITCHIN' RANDY; Grimey Drawer

Javid posted:

Didn't the first wave of sovcit defendants ended up walking because the court had no loving idea what to do with them or the arguments they presented? Granted everyone's familiar with them now but it did objectively work for a number of people early on as a novel variant of the chewbacca defense

In Texas, the main issue was specifically them filing a bunch of bogus judgment liens and other kind of liens against people's properties. They would just walk over to the courthouse and file bogus million dollar judgment lienz against some judge that had given them the traffic ticket conviction, or some DA that prosecuted them or some other public official that annoyed them for whatever reason.

At that time, and in general, there's no recourse with respect to damages or attorneys fees for just filing a lien on someone's property. Everybody paid their own way because the balance of history prior to that lean disputes and disputes is the title to real property were generally in good faith.

This was the early '90s I think which was really the first wave here in Texas. After that the state legislature passed a law that says if you follow a lien of that sort in bad faith or for the purpose of harassing someone, they can get $10,000 in civil damages and exemplary damages against you..

# ? Jul 3, 2021 00:55

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; This does not make sense when, again, aggregate indicia also indicate improvements. The belief that things are worse is false. It remains false.

There was an early set of cases (state depending ofc) where sovcit a got prosecutors to drop charges because the cost of the case would be completely overwhelming to the court, who tried to treat the defendants with kid gloves. As you can imagine, this fed back into support for sovcit beliefs.

# ? Jul 3, 2021 18:01

MadDogMike: Apr 9, 2008; Cute but fanged

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Then the system randomly crushes their dreams for no reason or for a bad reason and they look around them and they see that the system is very clearly rigged, but they don't have the education or intellect to figure out how it's rigged -- and anyway "being rich already" isn't an answer that can help them -- so they latch onto alternate explanations that feel believable and help them believe, ok, the system isn't fair, but at least if you say the right set of magic words it can be unfair in your favor for once.

Put simply, �magic words� is literally what they�re doing, they see the practice of law as some kind of spell craft and they think if they follow these rituals they learned online from some wise sounding law magician, they too will have Power. In another era they�d be laying curses on their neighbors or trying divinations to figure out the weather - hell, wonder how many of them follow things like astrology as is. I kind of suspect for a lot of people any legal activity is just wizardry; God knows a lot of my tax prep clients I�m certain almost literally think I�m a sorcerer who can command the IRS demons to obey and turn paperwork to gold. While I can�t really mock the logic in regards to the IRS, nobody seems to recognize the demons are the ones calling the dance here, I just chant along to them :worship:

# ? Jul 3, 2021 21:21

Leviathan Song: Sep 8, 2010

MadDogMike posted:

Put simply, �magic words� is literally what they�re doing, they see the practice of law as some kind of spell craft and they think if they follow these rituals they learned online from some wise sounding law magician, they too will have Power. In another era they�d be laying curses on their neighbors or trying divinations to figure out the weather - hell, wonder how many of them follow things like astrology as is. I kind of suspect for a lot of people any legal activity is just wizardry; God knows a lot of my tax prep clients I�m certain almost literally think I�m a sorcerer who can command the IRS demons to obey and turn paperwork to gold. While I can�t really mock the logic in regards to the IRS, nobody seems to recognize the demons are the ones calling the dance here, I just chant along to them .

To be fair, that's actually how the world works a lot of the time. Uttering the words "out the door price" when buying a car completely changes the experience. The same with "balance billing" when dealing with health insurance. Last time I was dealing with bank escrow on my mortgage, I had to look up the right magic words to change my insurance because telling them in plain speach wasn't getting any action. Arbitrary industry and legal terms really are just magic words if you're unfamiliar with them.

# ? Jul 3, 2021 21:34

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# ? Jun 6, 2024 16:18

Nice piece of fish: Jan 29, 2008; Ultra Carp

Terminology. You're discussing the nomenclature of concepts. While words themselves don't carry intrinsic meaning, the concepts they desbribe are real, genuine and founded on philosophocal thinking that forms the core of legal reasoning. This applies to everything. Through consensus we have law, and through education that consensus may be used to produce the results that follow the core tenets of law: the tenet of the social contract, the will of the people, natural rights, intrinsic human value, the feeling of ripping a gigantic fart after eating that double size kebab last saturday, you think it may have stained a little, and your god-given right to do so no matter what that hairdresser said and so what if they didn't finish, it looks fine this way.

# ? Jul 3, 2021 21:59

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Legal Questions: I believe the problem is that they need a well, actually

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