On topic: How did the Scottsdale and Chandler police break free from this suit? If you ask me, police departments that are alerted to violent behavior and leave a guy on the street are a lot more liable than university administrators who have absolutely no ability that I'm aware of to contain violent individuals (legally, at least). Slightly off-topic: So: (1) ASU and McDonald's are small businesses Swing and a miss. As a small business owner myself, I can tell you that the ridiculous number of frivolous lawsuits in this country -- many of which are settled even when the defending company is at absolutely no fault simply because the risk is greater than the reward in a fight -- naturally drive up the cost of insuring ALL companies from such lawsuits. And, because lawsuits happen all the time for all manner of reasons, it is borderline insane not to insure your company against them. That insurance premium cuts into your profit margin, and the burden is naturally harder on small businesses. Re: McDonalds -- it doesn't matter where the woman was keeping her coffee or how it was spilled. What if the spill didn't occur from her negligence, but from somebody else's? What if she was bumped on her way out the door and the coffee was dumped on her? It's a shame that this lawsuit has somehow become the poster child for lawsuit abuse, because it IS a real problem. This suit is more valid than most, but frivolous suits are clogging up the courts, preventing legitimate victims from getting timely compensation, and unnecessarily damaging corporations (for Reason One of many why you should care about this, see "insurance costs" above). The worst are class action suits in which thousands of plaintiffs get $5 coupons from the defending company in a settlement that nets the plaintiffs' counsel millions. Crazy, this legal system.
1. The Darwin Awards celebrate people who died stupidly, not sued someone. Sorry I messed up the source, I was looking at something else. He did not win a Darwin award and he did survive. I also have an inside tip that McDonald's, when asked for the decaf coffee that they do not usually have, put caffinated coffee in a decaf cup! Those allergic to caffine, beware.
I'm not really clear what ASU was supposed to do about this student. If there were allegations of threats from the three female students, and those threats were under investigation or already cleared, then the killer was not yet (legally) proven to be a danger. If those threats were proven to be true then I suppose the University should have turned the case over to the police and possibly expelled him. Or not, since the student might have sued them for violating due process. Anyway, other than for the short time until the police arrive, since when do universities keep students under (house) arrest?
ASU has to, at a minimum, report it to the proper authorities. This incident occured almost a year ago, so the 'grieving father' is perhaps overstating it a bit. It takes time to file a lawsuit. The lawyer has to due some research. You have to give the other party notice, then they have time to respond. A year is not a suspiciously long time.
The suit was filed late in February of 2006, the shooting occured March 26 of 2005. I am not saying that the delay is suspicious, only that accrediting the father with being more concerned about accountability, explanation, apology, or change, than he would be about money is, perhaps, giving him undue credit for purely altruistic reasons for the law suit. Also, look at the defendants in the suit: the university, the state Board of Regents, Sun Devils football coach Dirk Koetter and former ASU athletic director Gene Smith (who is now at OSU).
One guy ate 5 pounds of cheese a day for 6 months. He was so constipated that he exploded. Can his daddy sue the cheese company?????
One guy ate 5 pounds of cheese a day for 6 months. He was so constipated that he exploded. Can his daddy sue the cheese company????? I'd like to sue somebody for this thread.
Let's make it a class action suit. We'll get the guy from A Civil Action. On second thought, forget it. Who says the cobbler's children always go shoeless?
Changed my post a little. We can't hold a university accountable for its students' actions. If we did, then it would never end. Soon enough we'd have people suing 30 years later because the school let some woman's husband go to bars as a freshman and led to his alcholism that made him an abusive spouse. And if someone starts learning subversive things at college, then should we sue the college for not censoring all writings that go through its doors? Yeah, both scenarios might sound really ridiculous...but then again, you know what else sounds ridiculous to me? A woman suing McDonald's because she can't hold a coffee cup between her legs.
We'll get the guy from A Civil Action. On second thought, forget it. Who says the cobbler's children always go shoeless? Apparently Schlichtmann did not learn his lesson from that Woburn case. Good book though. Soon enough we'd have people suing 30 years later because the school let some woman's husband go to bars as a freshman and led to his alcholism that made him an abusive spouse. The statute of limitations would prevent such things from happening. Good luck proving the school's duty and the causation (like proximate cause, for example) there too.
I'd like to sue somebody for this thread. I'll send a contribution for a lawyer, just tell me where to send the money.
Have you seen some of the workers at McDonald's? They have no clue that coffee would seriously injure someone. Did you read those articles? McDonald's DID know how hot their coffee was (too hot) and that it could injure someone (happened numerous times before) but still didn't want to lower the temperature of their coffee. The fact that some pimply-underage kid* is the one serving the coffee has no bearing on the corporate misdeeds. * I was one when I worked at McDonald's in the Metro Toronto Zoo back in 1986, so I'm allowed to make that comment.
*are there not child labor laws against one year olds working fast food?
The McDonalds woman was an idiot to do what she did. To think that the University is reponsible for what an adult did off campus is as ridiculous. Both should get tossed so far out of court as the first bounce should occur in Maryland.
Wow. You've put everything in a new light.
One thing that hasn't been mentioned (maybe I'm skimming the thread) is that Koetter dismissed Falkner -- a cannon fodder type player -- for traffic violations. In contrast, super-stalker Wade happened to have set the school's freshman rushing record and he was allowed to remain on the team. That seems a little more than a school, AD and coach merely asleep at the switch, unable to control their players. It looks like a program that sent the not-so-subtle message to Wade that you can do anything -- on the field or off, on-campus or off -- as long as your presence benefits the team. The school had a similar situation with a star player, Hakim Hill, who was given four chances (from sexual abuse to an in-locker room tantrum) before his presence was no longer necessary. It's sad to see Koetter say that he couldn't "connect the dots" on Wade, but he had no problem doing so with Falkner, a special teams player who apparently went too far by being arrested for driving with a suspended license. No wonder Wade felt free to pack heat.
