The case: Yan v. Ford Motor Company. A 65-year old man was riding in a van on the Garden State Parkway, when his spare tire assembly fell off the back of the van and rolled to a stop next to the divider. He got out of the car (this was at about 1130pm and it was raining), and ran across the Parkway, picked up the assembly, and was running back when he got hit by a car and killed. His estate proceeded to sue everyone they could think of (the driver of the car that hit him, the auto maker, the manufacturer of the assembly, the last mechanic they had visited, Neil Patrick Harris, Bruce Springsteen, and God), in an attempt to collect from somebody on the grounds that their negligence had caused the man's death.
The New Jersey Court of Appeals said that nobody could be held liable (except the other driver, who settled), as the action of running across the Parkway was "an activity which cannot be described as anything short of extraordinarily dangerous, if not suicidal." Since he was 65, the court reasoned, he should have known better Now this makes sense to me; don't be stupid, don't run across the highway, especially if you're not exactly Usain Bolt. However, the New Jersey Supreme Court REVERSED the decision on the grounds that this man running across the Parkway to get a spare tire was completely foreseeable to a rational person.
Ok, what the hell? Are people in Jersey like pedestrians on the South Side, so fed up with their dreary existence that they use no caution in running in front of passing cars? And this is judicially codified as reasonable behavior? There are absolutely no words...
May all your hits be crits,
B
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