Wait, let me see if I get you correctly. You think that, if only we hired a better class of person to be mall security guards, suddenly we’d be able to explain exactly why skateboarders are not permitted in the parking lot?
Oh, what a revolutionary concept! If only someone had thought of telling people why they weren’t allowed to be on the premises, all our problems would be solved! If only we had a dedicated someone, who could engage random non-customers in 10-minute-long debates about the merits and failings of corporate liability law in modern-day USA, we will have nixed this whole thing entirely!
Or maybe, just maybe, there’s a reason corporations aren’t training their security staff to impart a message they could have delivered with a few signs and at a lower cost. Maybe wording has specific legal meanings and, when spoken by an employee representing the company, has legal implications for that company far beyond what the security guard should have. And maybe someone working a security post doesn’t owe you an explanation, no matter how disrespected you might feel as a result.
Or maybe you just don’t remember what teenagers are like and how much they care about appeasing random figures of authority. But you don’t seem to remember much from your law school days either, so you might want to see someone about that.
Well, like, none of us actually know the details of the case. Barring any actual additional details, it seems reasonable to believe that there was actually evidence here that the jury saw which made the case that Target was grossly negligent, given that this is what the only independent group of people who saw all this stuff found persuasive - despite the efforts of a mega-corp’s highly trained and highly paid lawyers. So yeah, probably there was trash everywhere.
Dire has the gist of it just about right. A property owner does not have a duty to ensure the absolute safety of a person who comes onto the property. The owner usually has a duty to take reasonable care to protect against hazards. That duty is especially strong for people like the woman here, who was “invited” onto the property by Target. There would be a much more limited duty to a burglar or other trespasser, who would, despite the stories, generally be SOL. What “reasonable care” is depends on lots of things, particularly whether the owner created the hazard and whether it was or should have been aware of the hazard. Liability for a completely random discarded needle in an otherwise well-kept parking lot would surprise me. Less so if Target were aware of junkies using the property.
(This is a huge generalization and not specifically the law of any state. It’s skipping things like attractive nuisances, too.)
It’s awesome that you have the omniscience to know exactly how long the needle had been there and the amount of time Target had been negligent in not cleaning it up. Can you do me a favor and pick some numbers off of this list for me?
More likely a corporate legal team asking “If we pay this person, how wide are we opening the door to making similar multi-thousand-dollar payments to every Tom, Dick and Harry who claims to stub his toe in our parking lot by setting this precedent?”
Needles used for subcutaneous insulin injections and needles used for IV injections typically look a bit different, I believe? Not that it’s not possible, but…
As much as i’d like to blame a large corporate such as Target just because, i can’t see how this could conceivably be their fault. Maybe if the needle originally was purchased in store or was dropped by an employee maybe, but otherwise no.
Target seem to be as much to blame here as they would be if a random pigeon or something started attacking customers ears in their parking lot: Not at all.
Now there is the secondary stupidity of healthcare bills from a privatised healthcare system at work here also, but that is a separate matter entirely.
Who owns the parking lot? In the UK it is the owners responsibility to keep their property safe (within reason - It wouldn’t be their fault for errant shopping carts or bad drivers). Have someone patrol the parking lot regularly.
When I was working at Carlisle United we had to check Brunton Park before and after each match for any hazards, structural damage or dangerous litter. Most of the time things were OK, but one time we had to close The Paddock (the main terracing) because it was iced over.
I don’t know why Target didn’t just pay the costs and claim on their insurance though.
At a guess, because employer-based health care gives them a huge amount of control over their employees. People are less likely to quit a crappy job if it’s the only protection their family has against medical bankruptcy.
I think it’s reasonable that the parking lot isn’t 100% safe all the time.
That needle could have been there approximately 10 seconds, right after the every-quarter-hour “parking lot safety sweep” done by the store (this is sarcasm), and the store still would have been considered liable. That’s not reasonable, and I don’t think any reasonable person would believe that Target could possibly be liable unless there’s a history of unsafe conditions that Target did nothing about.
It’s an unfortunate accident, and most people’s (unfortunate) first reaction is that they’re owed something.
No, overall it’s an intelligent critique of the sort of things that got glamorized by the marketing and the fanboys. In the end he gets the girl and kills the part of him that was rebelling against the “system”.
Dude, these damages were decided in a court where Target was given an opportunity to have their army of lawyers argue exactly the point you are making. Apparently that was not enough to convince the jury.
Since you weren’t involved in the court proceedings, I think it makes sense to defer to the people in the jury who listened to the arguments on both sides and decided in favor of the plaintiff.
Yeah, you’re making a lot of assumptions when you assume you know better than the people who’ve actually been exposed to the particulars of the case.
Again, Target has an army of lawyers. As others have pointed out, the needle could have been dropped there a few minutes before the incident. Do you think the lawyers would fail to point this out in court? The fact that the jury didn’t buy it strongly suggests there are elements of the case we are not privy to, and these elements were the basis for the decision that was made.
