Tag: liability

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crime and punishment general freedom media and media people moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies privacy too much government U.S. Constitution

Unlovely Congress

Craigslist, HR 1865, "FOSTA", Trump, Congress, censorship, liability

If you recently tried to post a personal ad on Craigslist, the popular classified-​ad site, you were in for a shock. Craigslist has suddenly discontinued all personals. You can still sell your used rototiller, but forget about telling the world you’re lost in Louisville looking for love.

The company doesn’t want to be prosecuted for helping people find each other en route to becoming partners in outlawry.

Congress has just passed legislation subjecting site publishers to criminal and civil liability when their users “misuse online personals unlawfully.” The president’s signature is expected. Craigslist doesn’t want all that open-​ended liability. “Any tool or service can be misused,” it observes. 

Indeed. If the principle underlying this law were consistently applied, any good or service that facilitates communication (or other human activity!) would expose providers to liability for any illegal conduct abetted by their products. Would curtain manufacturers be exempt? We all know how bad guys plotting evil pull their curtains. Freedom of speech, freedom of casual encounters, freedom of curtain-​trafficking, it’s all at risk.

What about Congress’s goal of discouraging prostitution? 

Will all U.S. prostitutes now retire?

Not if the last several thousand years are any clue. Especially as other sites follow Craigslist’s lead, prostitutes who had escaped the streets thanks to online means of client-​hunting will tend to return to those streets. If so, neighborhoods less seedy and less dangerous thanks to Craigslist etc. will now tend to reacquire such unlovely qualities.

Thanks to (unlovely) Congress.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Categories
judiciary

Help Is Not on the Way

Think twice before you save people about to lose their lives, at least if you live in California.

The state supreme court there just ruled that good Samaritans can be held liable if they cause or aggravate an injury while rendering emergency help if that help is not medical.

A 1980 California law protects persons who render emergency aid from just such liability. But in a recent decision, the high court divined that this protection only pertains to “medical” care.

Therefore, Lisa Torti is liable for damages for pulling her coworker, Alexandra Van Horn, out of a car wreck in 2004. Van Horn became a paraplegic as a result of the accident. Ms. Torti did not cause the crash, but she was reluctant to stand by to witness her friend die should the car explode.

In his dissent, Justice Marvin Baxter observes that the perverse result of the ruling is that a person “who dives into swirling waters to retrieve a drowning swimmer can be sued for incidental injury he or she causes while bringing the victim to shore, but is immune for harm he or she produces while thereafter trying to revive the victim.”

So, hide your identity when you rescue people in California. That way, when you save somebody’s life and he yells, “Who was that masked man? Because I want to sue!” — he’ll be out of luck.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.