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Liability law is at least consistent, even if I end up disagreeing with the result. When my (now ex-) wife was in law school, one if the sample cards they stud

Liability law is at least consistent, even if I end up disagreeing with the result. When my (now ex-) wife was in law school, one if the sample cards they studied was an arsonist where the fire had met up with an unrelated one. The arsonist was found liable for all the subsequent damage from the combined fire rather than an approximation of his "contribution" despite the being no disagreement that some of the damage would have happened anyway. In another case construction crews finding were found liable for a nearby mink farm's lost of income when the sounds freaked out the animals and they ruined their coats, because blowing stuff up, even done legally, is considered a high liability task. At least those are my recollections of the decisions, it has been a while and I didn't study them myself.

gamblor956 8y ago
Interesting. In law school, I learned that the exact opposite way--the arsonist wasn't responsible for any damage, because the bigger fire would have consumed the target house anyway. (Edit: I believe the proper term is "superseding cause". Note that with all things involving case law, this is highly jurisdictionally dependent. For example, in California, intentional acts can be superseding causes but not unintentional/negligent acts or acts of god.) With the mink case, the issue wasn't that blowing stuff up is a high-liability task. The issue was that it was a nuisance. Nuisance activities can be legal, and even first-in-time (like say, cow farms predating housing developments). Very nutshell version, but basically the issue with nuisance law is that the activity's effects transcend the boundaries of one's property and so the doer can be held liable for those effects.
- ergothus 8y ago
  I'll trust your memories over mine, particularly as you've studied this and I had dinner-table conversations.

gamblor956 8y ago

Interesting. In law school, I learned that the exact opposite way--the arsonist wasn't responsible for any damage, because the bigger fire would have consumed the target house anyway. (Edit: I believe the proper term is "superseding cause". Note that with all things involving case law, this is highly jurisdictionally dependent. For example, in California, intentional acts can be superseding causes but not unintentional/negligent acts or acts of god.) With the mink case, the issue wasn't that blowing stuff up is a high-liability task. The issue was that it was a nuisance. Nuisance activities can be legal, and even first-in-time (like say, cow farms predating housing developments). Very nutshell version, but basically the issue with nuisance law is that the activity's effects transcend the boundaries of one's property and so the doer can be held liable for those effects.

ergothus 8y ago
I'll trust your memories over mine, particularly as you've studied this and I had dinner-table conversations.