10 ms·

Just as a quick FYI the other side of the story is the the claim that he'd been drinking large amounts of cognac. "Mr. Pena was allegedly operating a Bird scoo

Just as a quick FYI the other side of the story is the the claim that he'd been drinking large amounts of cognac. "Mr. Pena was allegedly operating a Bird scooter illegally on a city-maintained sidewalk with a BAC [blood-alcohol level] over the legal limit, tested positive for marijuana and in violation of the California Vehicle Code." His claim is the city is at fault because police officers had seen him breaking the rules (no helmet, riding where he shouldn't and hadn't cited him). "He said he was never stopped or cited, even though police officers had seen him numerous times." It looks like he hit a visible obstruction, was not wearing a helmet and was impaired. My question is - should taxpayers be on hook for the millions he is looking for? I ask because I was part of an effort to get community gardens up, and "liability" concerns by cities over what seemed like farcical situations was a major impediment. Then the more I read about the lawsuits they face, the more I realized that you could fall asleep drunk at the wheel, run off the road, hit some garden thing and sue the city because whatever garden thing had a slight impact on the outcome of an accident that was your fault. There is some kind of crazy joint and severable liability which means if city is even like 5% at fault, if no one else can pay the $10M, they might have too?

deleted 5y ago
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cbg0 5y ago
> My question is - should taxpayers be on hook for the millions he is looking for? If you're asking from a moral perspective - absolutely not. I don't know what the law says though, as that's the only thing that matters. I've personally had a fall on my head while snowboarding and I'm glad I was wearing a helmet, as all I got was the wind knocked out of me. I can't imagine I'd ride my bike or a scooter in traffic without one.
- tempnow987 5y ago
  Liability exists under the law in these cases in California. This came up in the Cabral case. "On February 27, 2004, around 9:00 p.m., Decedent (Cabral) was driving an F-150 pickup truck (pickup) eastbound in the number three lane (of four lanes) on Interstate 10 (I-10) in San Bernardino County. Juan Perez testified that he was driving a big rig behind Decedent for some distance. He estimated Decedent's speed to be around "70, 80," miles per hour. Perez opined that Decedent appeared to be intoxicated or falling asleep because his pickup was swerving left and right within the number three lane. Perez saw the pickup suddenly turn right, cutting in front of another big rig truck in the number four lane, as if attempting to exit the freeway. The pickup crossed the number four lane and the paved shoulder of the freeway and then hit the back of Ralphs's big rig, which was stopped in the dirt area approximately 16 feet from the number four lane. Perez did not see brake lights activated on the pickup, nor was there any indication that Decedent tried to reduce speed or avoid hitting the big rig." Testimony was that he either fell sleep or was suffering from a medical conditions (350lbs). He was speeding, weaving all over the place, then crossed over the lane next to his and then into dirt at side of road and then traveled a pretty long distance and then hit a grocery truck that was stopped 16 feet away from side of road, so basically another two lanes over. And yes, Ralphs had to pay damages, even though their truck was damaged etc.
  - gamblor956 5y ago
    Important to note that tort law apportions responsibility (aka liability) for damages amongst all parties to the tort, so Ralphs would have been on the hook for at least some of the damages since their employee was the proximate cause of the accident (i.e., their driver's actions most directly led to the accident), even though the decedent was impaired or asleep.
    - tempnow987 5y ago
      Correct, that was the outcome, even though the decedent crashed INTO the Ralphs truck (so lay person might think decedent would owe Ralphs if anything), instead Ralphs was ordered to pay decedent. This is where the law diverges from what people imagine.
      - giantg2 5y ago
        So what was the law that Ralph's broke? Was the rig not allowed to be parked there? There wasn't a lot of detail in the comment.
        dragonwriter 5y ago
        The rig was illegally parked in an area along the freeway designated for “emergency parking only“.
        giantg2 5y ago
        Ah, ok.
      - dragonwriter 5y ago
        The decedent's estate was also ordered to pay Ralph's. It's just the $4,725 in damages that Ralph's was awarded on their claim for damage to the truck was substantially less than the wrongful death award even after the latter was reduced to 10% of the damages the jury found because of Cabral’s 90% fault.
- cogman10 5y ago
  Morality is sticky here. I personally believe in universal health care and would say that his medical expenses SHOULD be covered without any sort of legal involvement. Hell, dude going around high and drunk probably needs to be in an addiction recovery program as well. The reason he's suing is because he can't afford his medical bills and the legal bills end up compounding the problem. Were there no medical bills, the lawsuit he could bring up would pretty much be pain and suffering... maybe. So, should taxpayers be on the hook? Partially in the sense that I think all medical problems should be publicly funded. Morally, removing discretion around who gets medical treatment and treating everyone ends up being a good. Will you waste money on people doing dumb things? Sure. However, you won't waste money having a giant system of people trying to weasel their way out of every payment (insurance). More people get their healthcare needs taken care of. An absolute net good.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    The interesting thing is how we might adjust as a society with something like universal healthcare. In theory, it's possible the accident might not have happened at all if we decided as a society that e-scooters, alcohol, and weed, were all things that lead to expensive care, and we highly restricted them to help control health system costs. Although it also depends on how that universal system works. For example, some systems require people with "preventable" conditions to pay an extra tax for their services.
    - cogman10 5y ago
      > if we decided as a society that e-scooters, alcohol, and weed, were all things that lead to expensive care, and we highly restricted them to help control health system costs. Perhaps e-scooters could be restricted. However, intoxicating substances are pretty much impossible to stop (We've tried). The problem is that most intoxicant substances can be made anywhere with a very low amount of equipment. So, rather than focusing on restricting access, IMO, the better route is focusing on supporting behavior/lifestyle changes. Though, if we are talking about fixing costs, then one thing that'd help tremendously would public access exercise facilities. It's a lot cheaper to operate a gym than a hospital.
mensetmanusman 5y ago
“ My question is - should taxpayers be on hook for the millions he is looking for?” Obviously not, but with how crazy society has gotten, maybe these Idiocracy-lite situations will become more common and they will have to be priced-in; meaning that eventually nothing can be done because everything will be too expensive due to liability and labor shortages.
- happyopossum 5y ago
  > eventually nothing can be done because everything will be too expensive due to liability and labor shortages. I have to wonder if you wrote this in 1987, because that's kinda already the reality we're living in in 2022...
xyzzyz 5y ago
Wait, he's suing the city because he thinks his crash is city's fault for lack of maintenance, despite it literally being illegal to ride a scooter there, and, on top of that, being too drunk to drive? Imagine a drunk driver suing the city after crashing into a tree growing on a median, for failing to clear the median to make it safer to drive there. It would be a amusing story in the nation's every single morning radio show. I get that the guy is now paralyzed, but he has no case, all he's trying to do is to socialize his wrong choices onto LA taxpayers.
- superfrank 5y ago
  Slight correction, it's not known whether he was drunk at the time or not. He drank the night before. The city and Bird claim he was still drunk, he claims he wasn't. The article states > As for whether Peña was legally drunk or high at the time of the crash, that is unclear. A judge who ruled against the city when it asked that the lawsuit be tossed wrote in her order that no forensically defensible blood alcohol test had been administered. Avina told me that two toxicologists agreed that while cannabis may have shown up in Peña’s urine, there was no way to tell when it was ingested.
  - tempnow987 5y ago
    He'd drunk 750ml of cognac. Cedars noted he was under influence and smelled of marijuana. I think he'd stopped at a weed shop at 11AM or so on day of accident. He was going downhill on a sidewalk covered by trash. It's actually not totally clear the sidewalk issue was cause of accident. He hit a tree parallel to the uplift, the city wonders how that was possible, if he hit the uplift and pitched forward it would be weird to hit a tree parallel to the uplift. There were other issues on the hill (trash etc). There had been no service records to fix sidewalk in 10 year search by city. Smoking weed impairs you. He smelled of weed and stopped at a cannabis store. Even ignoring all this, he accelerated down this hill, never applied the brakes. I'm just pointing out some other factors that may have caused his accident other than the city being idiots.
    - gruez 5y ago
Mizza 5y ago
You guys all missed the point of the article. > But here’s where the story takes a head-spinning twist: > When Peña downloaded the Bird app and agreed to its terms in August 2018, he unwittingly indemnified Bird against any lawsuits. Bird now claims that Peña owes the company $322,171, the amount it has spent so far defending Los Angeles against the lawsuit. > Even more abominable, Bird argues that if the lawsuit goes to trial and Peña is awarded damages, it is Peña who must pay the damages … to himself.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
  I feel like this is not a particularly unreasonable outcome. Riding a scooter has certain inherent risks. I feel really terrible for this guy, but I also am not convinced that he should get a big payday from bird because he happened to be using one of their scooters when he had his crash. Nor the city. Unless these roots were egregiously uplifted and the city had been informed of that fact.
  - rflrob 5y ago
    "Whether the roots were uplifted and the city had been informed" and "was Mr. Peña irresponsibly impaired" are arguments about the merits of the case. The point of the article is that Bird agreed to indemnify the city (compensate the loss incurred to the other party), and Bird claims that by agreeing to the ToS, users agree to indemnify Bird. I am not a lawyer, but it seems untenable that the buck stops with the user in all circumstances.
    - asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
      Yeah this is an interesting outcome of the various contracts that were agreed to. I think the issue here is probably Bird's indemnification of the city for all suits related to the use of their scooters. The city should only have requested indemnification in the event the scooter was defective in some way, and Bird should not have agreed to indemnify the city so broadly. Likewise, the breadth of the user's indemnification of Bird might be unconscionable. Although in this case I would argue that it is leading to what appears to be the correct outcome, it's problematic as a general rule.
slg 5y ago
> My question is - should taxpayers be on hook for the millions he is looking for? One of the reasons people in this situation sue for millions of dollars is because it can take millions of dollars to cover their medical expenses for the rest of their life. Maybe the whole system would work better if the taxpayers covered this medical care upfront rather than this circuitous route of only paying for the medical care after a lawsuit. The current system seems to be working for no one.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  The part of the system that is not working is the part where people feel they can get excessively drunk without sufficient consequences to incentivize them to not get excessively drunk. Edit: apparently, it is not conclusively proven the person in this incident was drunk.
  - slg 5y ago
    Whether he was drunk or not is irrelevant to the root of the problem. Having a life altering accident like this in the United States cost hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars. That puts people in a situation in which their only hope is to sue someone. It doesn't matter who is actually at fault. Fault isn't the motivating factor. The motivating factor is that people need money to pay for their care and a lawsuit is the most realistic way to get that money.
    - londons_explore 5y ago
      In any country, someone would have to pay for that very expensive care. Even somewhere with 'free' government healthcare, it's still the taxpayers who pay.
      - Bud 5y ago
        But they'd pay a lot, lot less in a more efficient system that wasn't ruthlessly optimized in about 20 ways for max profit and nothing else.
whalesalad 5y ago
Hell no tax payers shouldn’t be responsible. He took a risk, now he must accept the consequences. This is a reminder that at any moment of the day you can encounter a situation just like this. Take care of yourself. The world will kill you if you let it.
ineptech 5y ago
> It looks like he ... was impaired. That was alleged by Bird and the city, but there appears to be no proof of it. Specifically it says > lawyers for the city argued ... that he had consumed a “large amount of cognac” the night before Sounds like he was drinking the night before the accident, and the city tossed out an evidence-free allegation that he might still have been drunk the following day on his way to a job interview with no evidence at all, in the hopes that some people wouldn't pay close attention to the details... Also, people don't usually go to job interviews drunk.
- Workaccount2 5y ago
  >Also, people don't usually go to job interviews drunk. Having worked for years in the service industry, you'd be surprised.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    And many people don't even realize that if they drink a large amount (10+ drinks) the night before that they are probably still drunk the next day. People just assume they slept it off.
deleted 5y ago
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ot 5y ago
> Just as a quick FYI the other side of the story is the the claim that he'd been drinking large amounts of cognac. You're not quoting the article accurately: > lawyers for the city argued [...] that he had consumed a “large amount of cognac” the night before > A judge who ruled against the city when it asked that the lawsuit be tossed wrote in her order that no forensically defensible blood alcohol test had been administered. It's very unlikely that his BAC was over the limit the day after (he was going to a job interview!), and regarding the cannabis in the urine, that stays detectable long after the effects are gone. These allegations are tactics to discredit the plaintiff (note how vague they are, no hard numbers) and make him unsympathetic, and by looking at many of the comments here they're working.
- tempnow987 5y ago
  Except the doctors noted evidence of the smell of weed, all their case notes and discharge notes indicate intoxication and bloodshot eyes. The plaintiff stopped AT a weed shop on the day of the accident. This is not a criminal trial, a jury may weigh some probabilities here. 750ml of cognac drunk the night before, a stop at a weed shop, 11,000 miles of sidewalk, and the claim the city is at fault for this accident and the plaintiff is not.
- gruez 5y ago
  >It's very unlikely that his BAC was over the limit the day after (he was going to a job interview!) A sibling comment[1] alleges that he drank 750ml of cognac. If that's true it's reasonable to assume he was intoxicated, even if there's no blood test [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30909634 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30909634
mr_november 5y ago
Unfortunate that this is the top comment at the moment - there is zero evidence he was impaired at all. Others have quoted the exact lines stating so in the article. Bird just playing a defamation game, gross.
tyingq 5y ago
The "was impaired" part seems to be in dispute: "A judge who ruled against the city when it asked that the lawsuit be tossed wrote in her order that no forensically defensible blood alcohol test had been administered."
nicolas_t 5y ago
At the risk of sounding heartless in situations with liability, I try to think of the long term consequence of a ruling indemnifying this driver. Even if he hadn't had alcohol or tested positive for marijuana, he shouldn't win this. Because if he did win, then it means living in a nanny state à la Singapore, police officers need to make sure that he doesn't break the rule, trees need to be cut because they're a danger to society and are too unpredictable (reminds me of the Guangzhou officials who cut 130,000 banyan trees). This is not a world I want to live in. I want to live in a world where you can decide to take risks but the consequences of those risks are yours alone. If he decided to ride a bird and didn't take any precaution or wear helmet, it's his fault. If however, he did this and caused an incident, it would also be his fault and peope impacted by the accident would be in their rights to sue him, since he is the one who took the risks.
rootsudo 5y ago
"The city lost a motion to get the lawsuit thrown out and turned to Bird for help with the case. In the failed motion, lawyers for the city argued the city did not know about the broken pavement or fig tree, that Peña accelerated down the hill (which Peña denies), that he had consumed a “large amount of cognac” the night before, that he was over the scooter weight limit by 15 pounds and was wearing a backpack." The night before.... for the cognac side. Not that I agree with the victim, but "drinking large amounts of cognac" needs context of "when".
lamontcg 5y ago
> A judge who ruled against the city when it asked that the lawsuit be tossed wrote in her order that no forensically defensible blood alcohol test had been administered. Avina told me that two toxicologists agreed that while cannabis may have shown up in Peña’s urine, there was no way to tell when it was ingested. (Cannabis can be detected long after its effect fades.) Sounds like its he-said-she-said about the blood alcohol test. And metabolite tests for cannabis ingestion are useless for determining intoxication. So it sounds like there's no proof he was drunk and/or high at all. At the same time as a 50 year old GenXer I see all these "kids" (which is probably under-30 these days for me) riding around on various e-contraptions without helmets and I mutter various old-person shit to myself about how they're going to crack their head open doing that. The problem is though that the legal machinations here that the scooter company wants to apply are horrible and indemnify them against anything, even if the person was otherwise being careful and the scooter just falls apart due to poor design and maintenance. There's no common sense to be found anywhere here as far as I can see.
tzs 5y ago
> There is some kind of crazy joint and severable liability which means if city is even like 5% at fault, if no one else can pay the $10M, they might have too? Joint and several liability isn't crazy when you realize that by the time a civil case gets to court it is often the case that some party must get screwed. Suppose X and Y are both at fault in something that caused serious injury to Z. Z was not at all at fault. Further suppose that X is 90% at fault and Y is 10% at fault, and that a just damages award to Z would be $1 million. The most just outcome would be that X pays $900000 to Z and Y pays $100000 to Z. But that only actually works if X can pay $900000 and Y can pay $100000. Suppose either X or Y is cannot pay, or maybe can eventually pay put it is going to take a lot of time and effort to squeeze the money out of them. Then either Z gets screwed by not getting their full damages paid or by having to spend a lot of time and effort collecting them, or whichever one of X and Y that has money gets screwed by having to pay more than their fair share upfront. With joint and several liability the idea is that if we have to screw someone, which we do in this situation, it is better to screw someone who was actually at fault than to screw someone who was not at fault. A party that ends up getting screwed by having to pay more than their fair share can then sue the other at fault parties for the overpayment. So if say it would be hard for Z to collect $900000 from X they can get it from Y, and then it is Y's problem to figure out how to squeeze $900000 from X.

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cbg0 5y ago

> My question is - should taxpayers be on hook for the millions he is looking for? If you're asking from a moral perspective - absolutely not. I don't know what the law says though, as that's the only thing that matters. I've personally had a fall on my head while snowboarding and I'm glad I was wearing a helmet, as all I got was the wind knocked out of me. I can't imagine I'd ride my bike or a scooter in traffic without one.

tempnow987 5y ago
Liability exists under the law in these cases in California. This came up in the Cabral case. "On February 27, 2004, around 9:00 p.m., Decedent (Cabral) was driving an F-150 pickup truck (pickup) eastbound in the number three lane (of four lanes) on Interstate 10 (I-10) in San Bernardino County. Juan Perez testified that he was driving a big rig behind Decedent for some distance. He estimated Decedent's speed to be around "70, 80," miles per hour. Perez opined that Decedent appeared to be intoxicated or falling asleep because his pickup was swerving left and right within the number three lane. Perez saw the pickup suddenly turn right, cutting in front of another big rig truck in the number four lane, as if attempting to exit the freeway. The pickup crossed the number four lane and the paved shoulder of the freeway and then hit the back of Ralphs's big rig, which was stopped in the dirt area approximately 16 feet from the number four lane. Perez did not see brake lights activated on the pickup, nor was there any indication that Decedent tried to reduce speed or avoid hitting the big rig." Testimony was that he either fell sleep or was suffering from a medical conditions (350lbs). He was speeding, weaving all over the place, then crossed over the lane next to his and then into dirt at side of road and then traveled a pretty long distance and then hit a grocery truck that was stopped 16 feet away from side of road, so basically another two lanes over. And yes, Ralphs had to pay damages, even though their truck was damaged etc.
- gamblor956 5y ago
  Important to note that tort law apportions responsibility (aka liability) for damages amongst all parties to the tort, so Ralphs would have been on the hook for at least some of the damages since their employee was the proximate cause of the accident (i.e., their driver's actions most directly led to the accident), even though the decedent was impaired or asleep.
  - tempnow987 5y ago
    Correct, that was the outcome, even though the decedent crashed INTO the Ralphs truck (so lay person might think decedent would owe Ralphs if anything), instead Ralphs was ordered to pay decedent. This is where the law diverges from what people imagine.
    - giantg2 5y ago
      So what was the law that Ralph's broke? Was the rig not allowed to be parked there? There wasn't a lot of detail in the comment.
      - dragonwriter 5y ago
        The rig was illegally parked in an area along the freeway designated for “emergency parking only“.
        giantg2 5y ago
        Ah, ok.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      The decedent's estate was also ordered to pay Ralph's. It's just the $4,725 in damages that Ralph's was awarded on their claim for damage to the truck was substantially less than the wrongful death award even after the latter was reduced to 10% of the damages the jury found because of Cabral’s 90% fault.
cogman10 5y ago
Morality is sticky here. I personally believe in universal health care and would say that his medical expenses SHOULD be covered without any sort of legal involvement. Hell, dude going around high and drunk probably needs to be in an addiction recovery program as well. The reason he's suing is because he can't afford his medical bills and the legal bills end up compounding the problem. Were there no medical bills, the lawsuit he could bring up would pretty much be pain and suffering... maybe. So, should taxpayers be on the hook? Partially in the sense that I think all medical problems should be publicly funded. Morally, removing discretion around who gets medical treatment and treating everyone ends up being a good. Will you waste money on people doing dumb things? Sure. However, you won't waste money having a giant system of people trying to weasel their way out of every payment (insurance). More people get their healthcare needs taken care of. An absolute net good.
- giantg2 5y ago
  The interesting thing is how we might adjust as a society with something like universal healthcare. In theory, it's possible the accident might not have happened at all if we decided as a society that e-scooters, alcohol, and weed, were all things that lead to expensive care, and we highly restricted them to help control health system costs. Although it also depends on how that universal system works. For example, some systems require people with "preventable" conditions to pay an extra tax for their services.
  - cogman10 5y ago
    > if we decided as a society that e-scooters, alcohol, and weed, were all things that lead to expensive care, and we highly restricted them to help control health system costs. Perhaps e-scooters could be restricted. However, intoxicating substances are pretty much impossible to stop (We've tried). The problem is that most intoxicant substances can be made anywhere with a very low amount of equipment. So, rather than focusing on restricting access, IMO, the better route is focusing on supporting behavior/lifestyle changes. Though, if we are talking about fixing costs, then one thing that'd help tremendously would public access exercise facilities. It's a lot cheaper to operate a gym than a hospital.

mensetmanusman 5y ago

“ My question is - should taxpayers be on hook for the millions he is looking for?” Obviously not, but with how crazy society has gotten, maybe these Idiocracy-lite situations will become more common and they will have to be priced-in; meaning that eventually nothing can be done because everything will be too expensive due to liability and labor shortages.

happyopossum 5y ago
> eventually nothing can be done because everything will be too expensive due to liability and labor shortages. I have to wonder if you wrote this in 1987, because that's kinda already the reality we're living in in 2022...

xyzzyz 5y ago

Wait, he's suing the city because he thinks his crash is city's fault for lack of maintenance, despite it literally being illegal to ride a scooter there, and, on top of that, being too drunk to drive? Imagine a drunk driver suing the city after crashing into a tree growing on a median, for failing to clear the median to make it safer to drive there. It would be a amusing story in the nation's every single morning radio show. I get that the guy is now paralyzed, but he has no case, all he's trying to do is to socialize his wrong choices onto LA taxpayers.

superfrank 5y ago
Slight correction, it's not known whether he was drunk at the time or not. He drank the night before. The city and Bird claim he was still drunk, he claims he wasn't. The article states > As for whether Peña was legally drunk or high at the time of the crash, that is unclear. A judge who ruled against the city when it asked that the lawsuit be tossed wrote in her order that no forensically defensible blood alcohol test had been administered. Avina told me that two toxicologists agreed that while cannabis may have shown up in Peña’s urine, there was no way to tell when it was ingested.
- tempnow987 5y ago
  He'd drunk 750ml of cognac. Cedars noted he was under influence and smelled of marijuana. I think he'd stopped at a weed shop at 11AM or so on day of accident. He was going downhill on a sidewalk covered by trash. It's actually not totally clear the sidewalk issue was cause of accident. He hit a tree parallel to the uplift, the city wonders how that was possible, if he hit the uplift and pitched forward it would be weird to hit a tree parallel to the uplift. There were other issues on the hill (trash etc). There had been no service records to fix sidewalk in 10 year search by city. Smoking weed impairs you. He smelled of weed and stopped at a cannabis store. Even ignoring all this, he accelerated down this hill, never applied the brakes. I'm just pointing out some other factors that may have caused his accident other than the city being idiots.
  - gruez 5y ago

Mizza 5y ago

You guys all missed the point of the article. > But here’s where the story takes a head-spinning twist: > When Peña downloaded the Bird app and agreed to its terms in August 2018, he unwittingly indemnified Bird against any lawsuits. Bird now claims that Peña owes the company $322,171, the amount it has spent so far defending Los Angeles against the lawsuit. > Even more abominable, Bird argues that if the lawsuit goes to trial and Peña is awarded damages, it is Peña who must pay the damages … to himself.

asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
I feel like this is not a particularly unreasonable outcome. Riding a scooter has certain inherent risks. I feel really terrible for this guy, but I also am not convinced that he should get a big payday from bird because he happened to be using one of their scooters when he had his crash. Nor the city. Unless these roots were egregiously uplifted and the city had been informed of that fact.
- rflrob 5y ago
  "Whether the roots were uplifted and the city had been informed" and "was Mr. Peña irresponsibly impaired" are arguments about the merits of the case. The point of the article is that Bird agreed to indemnify the city (compensate the loss incurred to the other party), and Bird claims that by agreeing to the ToS, users agree to indemnify Bird. I am not a lawyer, but it seems untenable that the buck stops with the user in all circumstances.
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
    Yeah this is an interesting outcome of the various contracts that were agreed to. I think the issue here is probably Bird's indemnification of the city for all suits related to the use of their scooters. The city should only have requested indemnification in the event the scooter was defective in some way, and Bird should not have agreed to indemnify the city so broadly. Likewise, the breadth of the user's indemnification of Bird might be unconscionable. Although in this case I would argue that it is leading to what appears to be the correct outcome, it's problematic as a general rule.

slg 5y ago

> My question is - should taxpayers be on hook for the millions he is looking for? One of the reasons people in this situation sue for millions of dollars is because it can take millions of dollars to cover their medical expenses for the rest of their life. Maybe the whole system would work better if the taxpayers covered this medical care upfront rather than this circuitous route of only paying for the medical care after a lawsuit. The current system seems to be working for no one.

lotsofpulp 5y ago
The part of the system that is not working is the part where people feel they can get excessively drunk without sufficient consequences to incentivize them to not get excessively drunk. Edit: apparently, it is not conclusively proven the person in this incident was drunk.
- slg 5y ago
  Whether he was drunk or not is irrelevant to the root of the problem. Having a life altering accident like this in the United States cost hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars. That puts people in a situation in which their only hope is to sue someone. It doesn't matter who is actually at fault. Fault isn't the motivating factor. The motivating factor is that people need money to pay for their care and a lawsuit is the most realistic way to get that money.
  - londons_explore 5y ago
    In any country, someone would have to pay for that very expensive care. Even somewhere with 'free' government healthcare, it's still the taxpayers who pay.
    - Bud 5y ago
      But they'd pay a lot, lot less in a more efficient system that wasn't ruthlessly optimized in about 20 ways for max profit and nothing else.

whalesalad 5y ago

Hell no tax payers shouldn’t be responsible. He took a risk, now he must accept the consequences. This is a reminder that at any moment of the day you can encounter a situation just like this. Take care of yourself. The world will kill you if you let it.

ineptech 5y ago

> It looks like he ... was impaired. That was alleged by Bird and the city, but there appears to be no proof of it. Specifically it says > lawyers for the city argued ... that he had consumed a “large amount of cognac” the night before Sounds like he was drinking the night before the accident, and the city tossed out an evidence-free allegation that he might still have been drunk the following day on his way to a job interview with no evidence at all, in the hopes that some people wouldn't pay close attention to the details... Also, people don't usually go to job interviews drunk.

Workaccount2 5y ago
>Also, people don't usually go to job interviews drunk. Having worked for years in the service industry, you'd be surprised.
- giantg2 5y ago
  And many people don't even realize that if they drink a large amount (10+ drinks) the night before that they are probably still drunk the next day. People just assume they slept it off.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

ot 5y ago

> Just as a quick FYI the other side of the story is the the claim that he'd been drinking large amounts of cognac. You're not quoting the article accurately: > lawyers for the city argued [...] that he had consumed a “large amount of cognac” the night before > A judge who ruled against the city when it asked that the lawsuit be tossed wrote in her order that no forensically defensible blood alcohol test had been administered. It's very unlikely that his BAC was over the limit the day after (he was going to a job interview!), and regarding the cannabis in the urine, that stays detectable long after the effects are gone. These allegations are tactics to discredit the plaintiff (note how vague they are, no hard numbers) and make him unsympathetic, and by looking at many of the comments here they're working.

tempnow987 5y ago
Except the doctors noted evidence of the smell of weed, all their case notes and discharge notes indicate intoxication and bloodshot eyes. The plaintiff stopped AT a weed shop on the day of the accident. This is not a criminal trial, a jury may weigh some probabilities here. 750ml of cognac drunk the night before, a stop at a weed shop, 11,000 miles of sidewalk, and the claim the city is at fault for this accident and the plaintiff is not.
gruez 5y ago
>It's very unlikely that his BAC was over the limit the day after (he was going to a job interview!) A sibling comment[1] alleges that he drank 750ml of cognac. If that's true it's reasonable to assume he was intoxicated, even if there's no blood test [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30909634 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30909634

mr_november 5y ago

Unfortunate that this is the top comment at the moment - there is zero evidence he was impaired at all. Others have quoted the exact lines stating so in the article. Bird just playing a defamation game, gross.

tyingq 5y ago

The "was impaired" part seems to be in dispute: "A judge who ruled against the city when it asked that the lawsuit be tossed wrote in her order that no forensically defensible blood alcohol test had been administered."

nicolas_t 5y ago

At the risk of sounding heartless in situations with liability, I try to think of the long term consequence of a ruling indemnifying this driver. Even if he hadn't had alcohol or tested positive for marijuana, he shouldn't win this. Because if he did win, then it means living in a nanny state à la Singapore, police officers need to make sure that he doesn't break the rule, trees need to be cut because they're a danger to society and are too unpredictable (reminds me of the Guangzhou officials who cut 130,000 banyan trees). This is not a world I want to live in. I want to live in a world where you can decide to take risks but the consequences of those risks are yours alone. If he decided to ride a bird and didn't take any precaution or wear helmet, it's his fault. If however, he did this and caused an incident, it would also be his fault and peope impacted by the accident would be in their rights to sue him, since he is the one who took the risks.

rootsudo 5y ago

"The city lost a motion to get the lawsuit thrown out and turned to Bird for help with the case. In the failed motion, lawyers for the city argued the city did not know about the broken pavement or fig tree, that Peña accelerated down the hill (which Peña denies), that he had consumed a “large amount of cognac” the night before, that he was over the scooter weight limit by 15 pounds and was wearing a backpack." The night before.... for the cognac side. Not that I agree with the victim, but "drinking large amounts of cognac" needs context of "when".

lamontcg 5y ago

> A judge who ruled against the city when it asked that the lawsuit be tossed wrote in her order that no forensically defensible blood alcohol test had been administered. Avina told me that two toxicologists agreed that while cannabis may have shown up in Peña’s urine, there was no way to tell when it was ingested. (Cannabis can be detected long after its effect fades.) Sounds like its he-said-she-said about the blood alcohol test. And metabolite tests for cannabis ingestion are useless for determining intoxication. So it sounds like there's no proof he was drunk and/or high at all. At the same time as a 50 year old GenXer I see all these "kids" (which is probably under-30 these days for me) riding around on various e-contraptions without helmets and I mutter various old-person shit to myself about how they're going to crack their head open doing that. The problem is though that the legal machinations here that the scooter company wants to apply are horrible and indemnify them against anything, even if the person was otherwise being careful and the scooter just falls apart due to poor design and maintenance. There's no common sense to be found anywhere here as far as I can see.

tzs 5y ago

> There is some kind of crazy joint and severable liability which means if city is even like 5% at fault, if no one else can pay the $10M, they might have too? Joint and several liability isn't crazy when you realize that by the time a civil case gets to court it is often the case that some party must get screwed. Suppose X and Y are both at fault in something that caused serious injury to Z. Z was not at all at fault. Further suppose that X is 90% at fault and Y is 10% at fault, and that a just damages award to Z would be $1 million. The most just outcome would be that X pays $900000 to Z and Y pays $100000 to Z. But that only actually works if X can pay $900000 and Y can pay $100000. Suppose either X or Y is cannot pay, or maybe can eventually pay put it is going to take a lot of time and effort to squeeze the money out of them. Then either Z gets screwed by not getting their full damages paid or by having to spend a lot of time and effort collecting them, or whichever one of X and Y that has money gets screwed by having to pay more than their fair share upfront. With joint and several liability the idea is that if we have to screw someone, which we do in this situation, it is better to screw someone who was actually at fault than to screw someone who was not at fault. A party that ends up getting screwed by having to pay more than their fair share can then sue the other at fault parties for the overpayment. So if say it would be hard for Z to collect $900000 from X they can get it from Y, and then it is Y's problem to figure out how to squeeze $900000 from X.