Comments on: Doesn’t help their pizza though

By: straightarrow

straightarrow — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 06:58:47 +0000

I once worked as a debit insurance agent. I was accosted one night by a robber. He did not fare well. I am not sorry, I don’t give damn how his mama felt about it. Nor do I care how the company I worked for felt about it.

By: Dad

Dad — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 18:57:20 +0000

Very nice JKB,your answer on the first scenario was my point. In the post of Standard Mischief he states that people go after the deep pockets, I was just pointing out that the other side ( the workers family ) could also go after the deep pockets.

By: JKB

JKB — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 15:31:51 +0000

Well, Dad, I suspect your second scenario would never see a jury. As the prohibition on carrying was a condition of employment.

In the first, where the driver uses a gun to defend himself, it could be argued that the use was in the scope of employment. Such an argument if successful would place the liability upon the employer or more specifically their insurance company.

In the second, where your son is killed and he was prohibited from carrying, the decision would probably be that your son freely agreed to the conditions of employment, one of which prohibited carrying. Even if you get over that hurdle, you then have to show that a gun in your son’s possession would have had a material impact on the outcome. You would have a high hurdle and the government aligned against you since the best defense against crime is to not deliver to high crime areas but that would be discrimination.

By: Standard Mischief

Standard Mischief — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 14:03:01 +0000

Juries, especially if they are tampered with by an expert lawyer [1], sometimes don’t have a problem making corporations with deep pockets pay.

Most crappy low paying service economy jobs that I’ve had in my youth had clauses in the employee handbook prohibiting doing anything more that 100% compliance and seeing which direction the robber ran off to. Having a baseball bat behind the counter is grounds for dismissal in some cases.

The limited liability thingys don’t care about their employees, they just want to be damn sure that they never appeared to condone any self-defense behavioral that might get the poor robber hurt.

Reform by providing a safe harbor for the limited liability thingys when they let employees defend themselves should work wonders. Might bring down crime too.

[1] Voir Dire is just French for jury tampering. -Vin Suprynowicz

By: Dad

Dad — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 13:43:07 +0000

Let me see if I have this right. “Judge I was to sue the Pizza Hut because my son was killed while trying to rob them”. That mean ol delivery boy had a gun.
Or maybe ” Judge I want to sue the Pizza Hut because they would not let him carry his weapon which he was licensed to carry. He was killed in a robbery because he was not able to defend himself”.
Which one do you think the jury would side with?

Just a thought!