4 ms·

Beyond the question of who is responsible, or if this person is owed anything for the risks they took, my biggest gripe with these stories isn't Bird or scooter

Beyond the question of who is responsible, or if this person is owed anything for the risks they took, my biggest gripe with these stories isn't Bird or scooters, or governments bureaucracy or litigiousness, but instead, simple the dollar amounts involved. Bird claims it has spent $322,171 defending LA against this suit - which was filed in November 2019. The average US Salary in 2019 was $32K. That means that 10 man-years of average-american time has been spent on this case? Or one lawyer, making 10x the average american's salary, working full time? On the flip side, the guy is suing for millions and was going to work at a sandwich shop. Is he expecting _more than a lifetime_ worth of value from society because he had an accident? These stories would all be so much less offensive to the senses if the numbers were within the realm of rationality. If he was suing for 150k and 2.5 years of legal defenses cost 50k, the outcome just wouldn't be nearly as important. As is, either "big corporation victimizes little guy" or "some drunk guy gets millions for falling down". It's a no-win situation.

droidno9 5y ago
What Bird is really fighting over in this case is the indemnification clause in their user agreement. If this clause is not found to be legal in California, the potential liability down the road could be millions in other cases.
- matwood 5y ago
  What Bird is really fighting for here is their entire business. If Bird has to take on liability for any accident on their scooter, regardless of fault, then there is no scooter business. Heck, potentially no sharing type business at all could exist then.
  - nullc 5y ago
    bird indemnified the city here-- they voluntarily adopted the cities legal liability, in some complex negotiation between their expert attorneys.
dml2135 5y ago
Not commenting on the specifics of this case because the article is paywalled, but if one suffers an injury that will result in a lifetime of medical expenses / disability, it could absolutely make sense to sue for a lifetime of salary.
ghaff 5y ago
Most lawyers don’t make extravagant salaries. And a lot of routine stuff isn’t that expensive. But Bird is probably using some big city law firm with expensive partners and highly billed associates with lots of billable hours making sure every i is dotted. Legal bills for this sort of thing add up fast. Professional services add up quickly. How many people here are going to provide 2.5 years of coding services even part-time for $50k?
gruez 5y ago
>The average US Salary in 2019 was $32K. Source? The BLS says the average is $56k in May 2020[1]. Unless there's some sort of massive wage inflation that took place between 2019 and then, your $32k figure seems suspect. [1] https://www.bls.gov/oes/2020/may/oes_nat.htm https://www.bls.gov/oes/2020/may/oes_nat.htm
ddellacosta 5y ago
> On the flip side, the guy is suing for millions and was going to work at a sandwich shop. Is he expecting more than a lifetime worth of value from society because he had an accident? This is the problem with the completely stupid healthcare system in the U.S.: this kind of moralistic outrage only makes sense in the context of our ridiculously overpriced costs which are the way they are because of perverse incentives in our healthcare system. If we had single-payer health care we'd probably be spending less on healthcare overall (https://decisiondata.org/news/how-much-single-payer-uhc-would-cost-usa/ https://decisiondata.org/news/how-much-single-payer-uhc-woul...), and this would never have been a news story. But, instead, we have these kinds of framings where someone did something stupid and has no way out of their situation besides desperately looking for some way to cover their costs without being completely screwed. How would any of us deal with this if we were in the same position? Coming back to "well he did it to himself" overlooks the reality of our system which is that so many folks with health issues have no options, regardless of how few mistakes they've made. And if we start demarcating who should and shouldn't get health care because of whatever stupid thing they have done, then I imagine we'd first say "well, all you smokers and drinkers, you don't get to have health care any more. Same for you overweight folks. Also you kids who got hurt because your parents weren't careful enough about protecting you when you were in a car/riding a bike/in a pool/etc.--sucks to be you." Etc. etc. This is first and foremost cruel, and more to the point, it is an absolutely ineffective way to determine public policy. If we stop applying these regressive moralistic arguments to who should and shouldn't have healthcare, and instead frame things in terms of the kinds of public health outcomes we want and the type of policies that produce those outcomes, we get to profoundly better results (which can be seen by considering how other developed nations with non-dysfunctional healthcare systems function, if nothing else). But as far as I can tell, based on my lived experience over the course of almost five decades, Americans mostly don't seem to want to concede to their fellow citizens any of this kind of pragmatism and compassion until they themselves find themselves in similar situations. The majority of the responses in this thread--including yours--seem to bear that out.

droidno9 5y ago

What Bird is really fighting over in this case is the indemnification clause in their user agreement. If this clause is not found to be legal in California, the potential liability down the road could be millions in other cases.

matwood 5y ago
What Bird is really fighting for here is their entire business. If Bird has to take on liability for any accident on their scooter, regardless of fault, then there is no scooter business. Heck, potentially no sharing type business at all could exist then.
- nullc 5y ago
  bird indemnified the city here-- they voluntarily adopted the cities legal liability, in some complex negotiation between their expert attorneys.

dml2135 5y ago

Not commenting on the specifics of this case because the article is paywalled, but if one suffers an injury that will result in a lifetime of medical expenses / disability, it could absolutely make sense to sue for a lifetime of salary.

ghaff 5y ago

Most lawyers don’t make extravagant salaries. And a lot of routine stuff isn’t that expensive. But Bird is probably using some big city law firm with expensive partners and highly billed associates with lots of billable hours making sure every i is dotted. Legal bills for this sort of thing add up fast. Professional services add up quickly. How many people here are going to provide 2.5 years of coding services even part-time for $50k?

gruez 5y ago

>The average US Salary in 2019 was $32K. Source? The BLS says the average is $56k in May 2020[1]. Unless there's some sort of massive wage inflation that took place between 2019 and then, your $32k figure seems suspect. [1] https://www.bls.gov/oes/2020/may/oes_nat.htm https://www.bls.gov/oes/2020/may/oes_nat.htm

ddellacosta 5y ago

> On the flip side, the guy is suing for millions and was going to work at a sandwich shop. Is he expecting more than a lifetime worth of value from society because he had an accident? This is the problem with the completely stupid healthcare system in the U.S.: this kind of moralistic outrage only makes sense in the context of our ridiculously overpriced costs which are the way they are because of perverse incentives in our healthcare system. If we had single-payer health care we'd probably be spending less on healthcare overall (https://decisiondata.org/news/how-much-single-payer-uhc-would-cost-usa/ https://decisiondata.org/news/how-much-single-payer-uhc-woul...), and this would never have been a news story. But, instead, we have these kinds of framings where someone did something stupid and has no way out of their situation besides desperately looking for some way to cover their costs without being completely screwed. How would any of us deal with this if we were in the same position? Coming back to "well he did it to himself" overlooks the reality of our system which is that so many folks with health issues have no options, regardless of how few mistakes they've made. And if we start demarcating who should and shouldn't get health care because of whatever stupid thing they have done, then I imagine we'd first say "well, all you smokers and drinkers, you don't get to have health care any more. Same for you overweight folks. Also you kids who got hurt because your parents weren't careful enough about protecting you when you were in a car/riding a bike/in a pool/etc.--sucks to be you." Etc. etc. This is first and foremost cruel, and more to the point, it is an absolutely ineffective way to determine public policy. If we stop applying these regressive moralistic arguments to who should and shouldn't have healthcare, and instead frame things in terms of the kinds of public health outcomes we want and the type of policies that produce those outcomes, we get to profoundly better results (which can be seen by considering how other developed nations with non-dysfunctional healthcare systems function, if nothing else). But as far as I can tell, based on my lived experience over the course of almost five decades, Americans mostly don't seem to want to concede to their fellow citizens any of this kind of pragmatism and compassion until they themselves find themselves in similar situations. The majority of the responses in this thread--including yours--seem to bear that out.