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Yeah, you are not. Say someone writes a contract saying that they can slap me in the face and each time they do I must pay $100, if I carefully read and then si

Yeah, you are not. Say someone writes a contract saying that they can slap me in the face and each time they do I must pay $100, if I carefully read and then sign that contract, and they then slap me three times — have I been assaulted or do I owe $300, or both?

rahimnathwani 12y ago
There are people who pay for this sort of service. Or so I've heard.
baddox 12y ago
I would say that you owe $300.
lotsofmangos 12y ago
Boxing and other martial activities require you to contractually remove yourself from claiming you have been assaulted as long as any violence stays within agreed rules. It would be very hard to train people in boxing, if your customers could sue you for assault every time you hit them.
- danielweber 12y ago
  Context matters. Participation in a sport generally brings with it an expectation to receive minor injuries customary to that sport. A legal contract depends on mutual understanding. People learning to box generally understand they are going to get hit. People booking a wedding party generally don't expect to be held responsible for their guests having opinions they post online. The hotel would have to make this policy very clear in order to achieve mutual understanding, and that doesn't mean just putting it on the contract and the webpage for the customer to find on their own.
  - baddox 12y ago
    > Participation in a sport generally brings with it an expectation to receive minor injuries customary to that sport. Participation in a contract that specifically covers terms for being slapped also bring with it an expectation of being slapped.
    - danielweber 12y ago
      I'm not sure how this is a response. It's not enough to have language in a contract. There needs to be understanding by both sides about what is being agreed to. Since the Internet engaged mob-mode before engaging investigation-mode, we don't know how clear these terms are to people who are booking weddings. It might be very clear because they send an email explicitly telling the bridal party about these terms and asking them to consent, which would also be a signal to the party about the quality of online reviews. Or it might be buried in the middle of 12 other clauses and the customer doesn't know about it.
      - baddox 12y ago
        Obviously there needs to be mutual understanding of a contract for it to be enforced. The original question included the phrase "if I carefully read and then sign that contract," which I think indicates that the contract was mutually understood and agreed upon.
        sk5t 12y ago
        Mutual understanding is not the only ingredient that constitutes an enforceable contract. Issues such as duress, inequality of bargaining position, and in this case, the plain bizarre unreasonableness of the terms, can enter into the equation.
lifeisstillgood 12y ago
You have been assaulted. Even professional boxers commit assault in every match. They just are not prosecuted for it because it is a sport and regulated and traditional. If they, for example, bite someone's ear off, then they do get prosecuted for assault. The fact it was in the ring during the fight does not stop that. Your contract would be unenforceable btw - I could slap you three times (hell make it twenty) and walk off - you could not get any court to enforce payment. You could threaten to accuse me of assault if I did not pay up - but then you are blackmailing me and would do more time than I would for assault. But I suspect that the hotel owner has been slapped by a couple of brides over this :-)
JackC 12y ago
This is actually a tricky question. Your assault & battery law probably says something like "unconsented or violent touching," so the fact that you consented doesn't matter, so you've been assaulted. And you can't enter a contract to perform an illegal act, so you don't owe $300 -- it's not a good contract.[1] But it depends why you're being slapped! Obviously we can't go prosecuting everyone who intentionally whacks into someone else according to the rules of whatever sport they're playing, so we make an exception for that. This gets tricky with sports like boxing where the rules require you to do something that looks pretty much like a brutal assault, so the exceptions in that case get pretty finicky -- we might insist that you make your mutual-battery deals in public, in licensed boxing rings, instead of by giving Brad Pitt a nice manly handshake in the basement of a bar and refusing to talk about it later. And then there's the whole gray area of less socially-accepted sports, like Quidditch or BDSM. We (even prosecutors) often approach things from the perspective of, "if this activity seems normal to me, it must be legal; if it seems wrong it must be illegal." When moral judgments and fear of the unknown creep into that analysis, it can lead to some twisted logic to justify the outcome we know must be right. [1] Now consider whether you can be prosecuted for A&B as an accomplice.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
dragonwriter 12y ago
Neither, maybe. As contract it seems to fail for lack of consideration, but it still probably is consent to being slapped so there is no assault.

rahimnathwani 12y ago

There are people who pay for this sort of service. Or so I've heard.

baddox 12y ago

I would say that you owe $300.

lotsofmangos 12y ago

Boxing and other martial activities require you to contractually remove yourself from claiming you have been assaulted as long as any violence stays within agreed rules. It would be very hard to train people in boxing, if your customers could sue you for assault every time you hit them.

danielweber 12y ago
Context matters. Participation in a sport generally brings with it an expectation to receive minor injuries customary to that sport. A legal contract depends on mutual understanding. People learning to box generally understand they are going to get hit. People booking a wedding party generally don't expect to be held responsible for their guests having opinions they post online. The hotel would have to make this policy very clear in order to achieve mutual understanding, and that doesn't mean just putting it on the contract and the webpage for the customer to find on their own.
- baddox 12y ago
  > Participation in a sport generally brings with it an expectation to receive minor injuries customary to that sport. Participation in a contract that specifically covers terms for being slapped also bring with it an expectation of being slapped.
  - danielweber 12y ago
    I'm not sure how this is a response. It's not enough to have language in a contract. There needs to be understanding by both sides about what is being agreed to. Since the Internet engaged mob-mode before engaging investigation-mode, we don't know how clear these terms are to people who are booking weddings. It might be very clear because they send an email explicitly telling the bridal party about these terms and asking them to consent, which would also be a signal to the party about the quality of online reviews. Or it might be buried in the middle of 12 other clauses and the customer doesn't know about it.
    - baddox 12y ago
      Obviously there needs to be mutual understanding of a contract for it to be enforced. The original question included the phrase "if I carefully read and then sign that contract," which I think indicates that the contract was mutually understood and agreed upon.
      - sk5t 12y ago
        Mutual understanding is not the only ingredient that constitutes an enforceable contract. Issues such as duress, inequality of bargaining position, and in this case, the plain bizarre unreasonableness of the terms, can enter into the equation.

lifeisstillgood 12y ago

You have been assaulted. Even professional boxers commit assault in every match. They just are not prosecuted for it because it is a sport and regulated and traditional. If they, for example, bite someone's ear off, then they do get prosecuted for assault. The fact it was in the ring during the fight does not stop that. Your contract would be unenforceable btw - I could slap you three times (hell make it twenty) and walk off - you could not get any court to enforce payment. You could threaten to accuse me of assault if I did not pay up - but then you are blackmailing me and would do more time than I would for assault. But I suspect that the hotel owner has been slapped by a couple of brides over this :-)

JackC 12y ago

This is actually a tricky question. Your assault & battery law probably says something like "unconsented or violent touching," so the fact that you consented doesn't matter, so you've been assaulted. And you can't enter a contract to perform an illegal act, so you don't owe $300 -- it's not a good contract.[1] But it depends why you're being slapped! Obviously we can't go prosecuting everyone who intentionally whacks into someone else according to the rules of whatever sport they're playing, so we make an exception for that. This gets tricky with sports like boxing where the rules require you to do something that looks pretty much like a brutal assault, so the exceptions in that case get pretty finicky -- we might insist that you make your mutual-battery deals in public, in licensed boxing rings, instead of by giving Brad Pitt a nice manly handshake in the basement of a bar and refusing to talk about it later. And then there's the whole gray area of less socially-accepted sports, like Quidditch or BDSM. We (even prosecutors) often approach things from the perspective of, "if this activity seems normal to me, it must be legal; if it seems wrong it must be illegal." When moral judgments and fear of the unknown creep into that analysis, it can lead to some twisted logic to justify the outcome we know must be right. [1] Now consider whether you can be prosecuted for A&B as an accomplice.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

dragonwriter 12y ago

Neither, maybe. As contract it seems to fail for lack of consideration, but it still probably is consent to being slapped so there is no assault.