Can I sue because I got a papercut on an envelope that the PO should have trimmed to get rid of the sharp edge?
Injured woman can sue Postal Service
A woman who tripped and fell over letters, packages and periodicals left on her front porch can sue the U.S. Postal Service for damages, the Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday.
The 7-1 ruling was a victory for Barbara Dolan, who said she suffered wrist and back injuries when she fell in 2001 in front of her Glenside, Pennsylvania, home.
She said postal employees acted negligently by leaving the mail on her porch. No further details were available on the circumstances of her fall.
I can understand, MAYBE, if the packages and letters were in a pile inside the door. But how do you trip over letters left on a porch. I get packages from UPS all the time, left on my porch, and they are clearly noticable. That’s assuming that it was an accident. I can’t understand the supreme court going along with this, though. Thank you G.W.B. for such fantastic appointees!!
I don’t she “won” anything. Rather, her initial complaint was dismissed because it was believed that an individual could not sue the USPS. The Supreme Court overturned that, so now she will be allowed to sue. She may still lose that case.
did i hear someone say…..*spilled hot coffee onto my crotch*?
I love the photo of the mailbox…..how cool is that?
Cool! Now I can finally sue the manufacturer of my coffee table for making it the precise height for triggering massive shin pain, when I run into it in the middle of the night. 🙂
If my postal delivery person leaves my mail in my mailbox and I slip on the ice under the mailbox can I sue them now? I want them to leave it on my porch when it’s icy!
I had some idiots leave new phone books in the middle of my walkway several years ago. I tripped over them. There was a reason I didn’t see them, and it had nothing to do with not watching where I was going. It was dark outside. You don’t set packages in the middle of known walkways.
You’d have to see the lady’s porch to know if she has a claim to sue. There’s a reasonable way and a not reasonable way to place items for people to find. Was the post office negligent? There is no way to know with the information provided.
I guess you have to have seen some boneheads do such a simple task the wrong way to realize that the woman may actually have a case. We assume that nobody can muck up such a simple assignment, but, trust me, they can.
If I burn myself using my fry-daddy turkey frier because I was distracted by the UPS guy ringing my door bell can I sue him???
Steve
You are correct that this is about whether she may sue the Post Office in the first place. I don’t know however about how far her (or anyone’s) duty to watch where they walk is the defining factor. Another article I read previously on this said the Postal delivery person did not use her mail box or put the mail between her door as had been done previously.
A person’s duty only goes as far as what would be expected from a reasonable person. As KB pointed out, he didn’t see a delivery simply because a foreseen event (darkness) interfered with his seeing it. If he had traversed the path 1000 times previously without incident, how could he be responsible for someone else leaving the hazard unexpectedly in his path?
It is refreshing to comments like your’s and a couple of others that looked at the case and not just an excuse to ridicule the incident.
The final goal in Amerika in people’s minds is to become rich. Money– having lots of it– is the epitome of success. Everyone pushes that dream on every new generation. All other values take second place. So what’s wrong when poor people use their available ingenuity to get to that coveted place by the means that are accessible to them? We reproach them for their “dishonesty” but we support a system and belief that is fiscally impossible: not everybody can be rich. Richness needs poorness. Money is a form of energy. Just like oil, food and electricity. Fairness and equity in a society is balanced when the energy of that society is fairly distributed. When there is an imbalance, war ensues. The only reason we don’t have civil war in this country is because the rich (and the clever) have made the poor apathetic and utterly powerless. Mostly, by keeping people divided by pitting poor man against poor man by keeping them at an intelligence level of children. Because when one has a child’s mind he/she cannot think for himself and so that void is filled with the master’s commands. His commands are consume, consume and consume. And fill you mind with ideals that torture you because you cannot attain them. Torturess ideas like you are a nobody if you don’t own possesions that are better than your neighbor’s. That you are a nobody unless you have prestige. That you are a nobody if you do not fill the mold of American beauty and success. You buy into it. And you have this unending thought that you are not happy. And you are not sure why. You use drugs, sex, food, alcohol and whatever it is to forget your “problems”.
I think the only way this country is going to change, and it has to because China is going to beat us at our own game, is for America to stand for something else besides money. We have to put our first value in Heart. We have to elevate people who do things for others for no personal gain except to help his fellow man achieve his dream. That is the only reason we live. Existence is a place. A place. It is a place where we can dream. Here is Heaven. We already died and were born into this world on our birthdates. We have to put money behind kindness and fairness. We are corrupt. Our president is corrupt. The world sees it. Many of us do too. Until we instill a new American Dream that exhorts kindness and fairness above money this nation will fall. And it is falling. The world sees it. We are blind.