I mean, there had to be at least one person who, on being offered the "You'll be on TV! That means you can't sue us" contract, just tore it up and stalked away, right? Right?

I'd certainly be tempted.

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But, considering that William's applied to be on the show, wouldn't it also be reasonable that she herself watched the show, and therefore knew what she was getting into? Couldn't she also be held liable for putting her sister, who she knew was unstable, in the position of being on the show?

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I think you're asking whether the level of harm must be foreseeable. IOW, if it was foreseeable that they'd hurt her feelings, does that meet the foreseeable requirement if she then goes ahead and offs herself. My gut is to say that the level of harm should be foreseeable, but in tort law if your plaintiff is Mr. Glass and you push him down and he breaks every bone in his body, you're liable even if that harm wasn't foreseeable. So, I'm not sure. Bon bon?

Torts was never my best subject, but it's a fact issue. To the laymen, that means that the factfinder decides whether the injury received could have been foreseen. You don't have to be able to foresee exactly how it happened, but you shouldn't be liable for a suicide if no reasonable person could foresee anything more than some hurt feelings. There is a space between "you take your victim as you find him" (i.e., your tough luck if you push Mr. Glass down the stairs, that's why you should never push people down the stairs) and tapping Mr. Combustible on the shoulder, causing him to blow up. You couldn't know that Mr. Combustible was combustible.

Maybe Palsgraf will help ita: [link]

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As for the bad mood question: most tort cases involve defendants who *didn't* foresee the harm they caused (that's why it's a tort and not a crime), but they should have. Perhaps in this case they hectored and goaded her mercilessly; perhaps it was obvious that she was mentally unstable. So it could be reasonably foreseeable that a mentally unstable woman would commit suicide if forced to do a horrible thing.

Is this the glass skull thing? Wait, that's for assault (or battery, I always get those confused) which is a crime, so I guess not. What I meant by that though, is that you punch ita in the head, having no idea she has some weird medical condition, that makes her skull crack like a glass, and it kills her, even though you only meant to whack her around a little.

This is barely coherent. So never mind, unless I have managed to reference something other than ragtime, in which case I'm glad to read whatever you've got.

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I'm betting that with the Mustang or the Corvette, the sheer fact of own one provides so much satisfaction, that as long as the car doesn't explode regularly, or cost the price of a whole other car every year or so in maintenance, you're going to give it high marks.

And the Mini squeaks by on sheer adorability.

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Is it common for an individual or group to be sued over someone's suicide? I was thinking the defense would argue along lines like, "How do you know what the reason was for someone's suicide" - do lawsuits like this succeed?

It's pretty common for psychiatrists and psychologists to be sued over this. Even when therapists show excellent professional judgment, they are likely to lose, because there is no perfect prediction of suicide and the sympathy factor is so high that juries think that someone must be held responsible. It's one reason why academics like me no longer see patients part-time. The malpractice insurance just costs too much.

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More on Rita:

Pressure is now 914mb, and the pace is now 6mb/hour. That means it should pass Katrina's low pressure in three hours, and if the pace were maintained it would reach Gilbert's all-time record of 888 late tonight. (No, it won't.)

Winds are 165, gusts to 185. And it's just getting stronger, and the eye isn't signalling a replacement cycle any time soon.

In effect, we could be looking at the biggest, baddest hurricane ever seen in the Atlantic basin by the time the West Coast gets Letterman. When the name "Gilbert" is being bantered around, it's time to get waaaay the heck inland ASAP.

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In effect, we could be looking at the biggest, baddest hurricane ever seen in the Atlantic basin by the time the West Coast gets Letterman. When the name "Gilbert" is being bantered around, it's time to get waaaay the heck inland ASAP.

There's a disturbance in the forc.....No wait, that's Dana's blood pressure.

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Going by the satellite pictures, it has that same unusual stadium-shaped eye (with tiers) that Katrina had.

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I'm pretty sure there was at least one lawsuit that came out of "Fear Factor".

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