sue him for putting them at risk
I didn't think that was something you could sue for.
What I tell people is that you can sue anyone for anything, anytime. You can't win without a good case, and you may get dismissed pretty fast, but you can always sue.
Emotional distress? I'm sure one of the more creative passengers will be able to come up with something.
His bio suggests that he washed out of the Naval Academy. Wuss.
What, exactly, are people saying when they say derogatorily, x is an empiricist?
I thought you have to have physical injury to recover for emotional distress.
How about suing for having to be tested? Intentional (or Negligent) Infliction of Emotional Distress?
The guy knew or should have know that he was at risk to infect people.
Is this much different from the guy who has sex with women knowing he has aids?
5 -- is that being said of TB-man? I missed it. I think I have heard that said with the connotation that x has no appreciation for the higher elements of existence, viz. the spiritual and the ideal.
PI lawyer down South? Possibly, but not how I'd bet.
Oh look, Andrew has a totally bizarre blog.
His bio suggests that he washed out of the Naval Academy. Wuss.
Bet Dad was happy about that. Shit hot chopper pilot, looks like career army Nam era. Yeah, he's loving the exposure.
6: No, but I thought that you did have to be close to someone who suffered physical injury when you're suing for negligent infliction of emotional distress. The mother who sees her child run over by a car would have a decent case, I think. I'm just spewing.
7: Snake on a motherfucking plane!
11 -- That looks like Apo's blog. Except with the indignant comments from family members of the deceased.
Noted without comment, the blog post titled: "Brain Damage is More Common Than You Might Imagine"
Dad trained very early in the airmobile era; I wonder if there are any references to him in Chickenhawk or any of the other memoirs of the helicopter war?
Have you been exposed to highly resistant TB bacteria on the job, in an airplane, or in conferences with the crowned heads of Europe? You may be a victim of negligence. Contact the Sp/eaker Law Firm, L.L.C., and sign a waiver indicating you will not sue! Get cash now! We have been helping injured people for over 25 years, and will pay you $50, on the spot, if you sign away your right to contact anybody like us.
His blog seems custom-designed to make his profession look as disgusting as possible. I like the "our thoughts and prayers go out to their family at this difficult time" tagline to every other post.
I don't know if the TB tests are expensive, but if they are, someone could sue for that (plus lost wages when at the doctor's office, plus the tests for the rest of the family as well, plus interest...)
Of course, if anyone actually does get TB from this guy, damages could plausibly -- I'd say justifiably, but I'm not a lawyer of course -- multiply. The fact of the return trip, and the method, look like a pretty serious example of negligence.
20: Beautiful, Ned.
People have tried the he-exposed-us-to-germs cause of action re: HIV, I know, but I don't know what came of those suits.
As for physical injury and IIED, it varies by state; the usual rule, I think, is that you *don't* have to show physical injury, if the psych injury is plausible *and* the conduct meets the test of being really, really egregious. Which, arguably, this might.
Anderson: This guy might get a 4- to 12-year sentence, if his name was "Nushawn".
23: Anderson, I don't think that anyone was claiming intentional infliction of emotional distress --a tort Traynor invented for a case he could have plausibly treated as false imprisonment. The question is whether he's liable for negligent IED. I don't remember what the elements of NIED are.
it turns out he's...a personal injury lawyer
The ellipsis-for-emphasis thing has to stop.
I don't remember what the elements of NIED are.
Negative IED?
"I didn't try to blow up the Humvee, officer, I just forgot and left my explosives on the road."
3
"You can't win without a good case ..."
Sure you can, you can argue about how easy it is to win with a bad case but it is certainly possible. And of course lawyers sometimes define good cases as cases which are likely to win regardless of their actual moral merit.
Oooh! This will make a fabulous essay question on the bar exam/law school finals:
A. Can TB-boy be sued for negligent or intentional infliction of emotional distress?
B. If so, would we apply the law of Georgia, the Czech Republic? Italy?
C. Will the CDC or a class-action personal injury attorney be the first to correctly identify all of the prospective plaintiffs with whom TB-boy had contact during his travels?
Thread is making me worry about the success of my efforts to study for the bar exam.
And of course lawyers sometimes define good cases as cases which are likely to win regardless of their actual moral merit.
"sometimes"
Nice one.
Don't worry about the bar exam. Look up the stats for what percentage of first time takers pass -- I don't think there are many, if any, states where that percentage is below 80%. Then think about the last time you were in the bottom 20% of test takers on a standardized test. If the answer to the last is "Never", do a normal amount of studying and don't worry.
I was under the impression that the California bar exam was ridiculously hard. Like, people not only fail, but expire during its administration. If that's not true, then the husband of someone I know is dumber than I realized.
The California bar is the hardest one. I think that the first-time pass rate is around 60%. Famously, the dean of Stanford Law failed the bar when she took it after retiring as dean to go into private practice. But passed it the next time around.
34: I too am under that impression. One of my best buddies failed it miserably. He's moderately bright and a pretty hard worker. He then passed either MD or VA easily. (I forget which, the goal was to waive into DC)
I just looked it up, and for July 2005, the pass rate for first time takers from instate ABA accredited law schools was 70%. So, brutal compared to other states, but still, I'm guessing yoyo doesn't have memories of being in the bottom 30% of takers of a standardized test either.
Well i'm taking Ohio, not Cali, so I won't sweat that one.
Due to some depression i barely am going to graduate, and didn't sign up for a bar/bri course (and didn't do too well in school). The girl i was sitting with while waiting at the character interview looked me like i was crazy when i said i didn't sign up for a review course. But yeah, i always do tests like i'm the Kwisatz Haderach so hopefully it balances out.
I've heard that some women get pregnant before exams because the hormone charge makes them temporarily smarter.
OMG Paige totally has an
[ ] easement appurtenant
[ ] easement in gross
Hrm. I would say that studying a normal amount involves taking a review course or duplicating one on your own. You've got a study plan?
I just (this morning) finished up the papers i was writing for class, so sometime this week i'll be figuring out a study plan.
38: You take tests like you're blind, married to a woman you don't love, and doomed to instigate a Jihad?
Just kidding. Luck with the test.
35: Oh my, how embarrassing. In that situation, I don't know how I'd prepare myself for the first time I had to make a social appearance where lawyer types would be around.
44: Eh, social appearances where lawyer types are around are painful enough regardless.
20: I cut and pasted this into the "Send Us A Confidential Message" form and sent it along.
I took the Virginia bar and was seated at a 3-person table with two Regent University graduates. As soon as I learned that, I thought, "I'm totally going to pass."
"I took the Virginia bar and was seated at a 3-person table with two Regent University graduates. As soon as I learned that, I thought, "I'm totally going to pass.""
I was also at a 3 person table. But the other two were from well-regarded law schools.
They kept writing, and writing, and writing.
It started to freak me out bc I wrote about three to five sentences per answer and stopped.
We all passed.
44: Are you kidding? You sashay in, head held high, and make sure you're the first one to crack a joke about it.
Bum. I click on the law firm link in the post and the blog link in comments and neither comes up.
50: Indeed. "Oh, I guess you actually do have to study for this, even if you're as smart as I am." For added bonus points you can appear in the school play in the scene making fun of the Thursday night "Bar Review", and say "oh, I thought you meant bar review".
51: Keep refreshing. It's getting hit with crazy traffic right now.
i want to express my emphatic agreement w/ the stras man from 26:
The ellipsis-for-emphasis thing...has to stop.
It is cached, of course.
I have to admit, the CDC found a pretty unsympathetic patsy.
I was handwriting a card to somebody the other day and found myself switching into italics for emphasis. Too much time playing with html and wysiwig, thinks I. OTOH my italic handwriting was recognizably different from my plain handwriting and I think a casual reader would be able to get that emphasis was the intent.
I would advise anyone not in CA not to worry too much about the bar exam. I was freaking out for a while because I can't afford to take a review course, and so will be studying on my own from last year's materials (bought off craigslist). Then, I looked it up and discovered that graduates from my school pass the IL bar at a rate of 97.5%. I stopped worrying, and am now resolved to do a couple hours of studying a day (LB, do you think that qualifies as "normal" during the weekdays and go for it.
50:
incidentally, B, is there any situation for which you do *not* think the right approach is to "sashay in, head held high"?
i mean, i admire the m.o., as a general thing. i wish it could ever work for me, but given the height of my head, and given my ability to sashay, it ain't going to happen.
but it is kind of the default m.o. for you, right?
55: But it's not emphasis, it's (dum dum dum—wait for it—wait for it—boom-tah-rah!) pausing for dramatic effect.
58: That sounds fine to me. Having a set of the materials (and a year old shouldn't matter much) is important just so you're sure to have complete coverage of all the relevant subject areas, and a couple of hours a day should be plenty.
60: perhaps some ASCII?
Turns out he's a --< oo====!:!:!:!====!:!:!:!==== > > > > > personal injury lawyer!
Oh man I just did something amazingly broken in html without even thinking about it. Neat.
I blame heebie.
take advantage of the medium's built-in advantages for spacing your utterances.
Back on topic, TB-dude's father in law soooo hates his guts:
Bob Cooksey would not comment on whether he reported his son-in-law, 31-year-old Andrew Speaker, to federal health authorities. He said only that he gave Speaker "fatherly advice" when he learned the young man had contracted the disease.Betcha that entire paragraph is some spectacular understatement.
Anderson, I don't think that anyone was claiming intentional infliction of emotional distress
Okay, late returning to the thread, but NIED is the last resort of losing plaintiffs. IIED is plausible on the facts -- given what he knew, a jury could find against him. At least, I've seen worse lawsuits settled.
66: The question is, how much does he hate his guts? Cooksey is a TB specialist with the CDC according to MSNBC.
69: Too, too awesome. Irony wins again!
I have a vague recollection of reading about largish asbestos settlements to plaintiff classes who had been exposed to asbestos but weren't ill. IIRC the theory was that they were entitled to be compensated for costs of future testing plus ED for the fear of dying of some nasty lung ailment. But asbestos class action settlements may not mean anything about anything outside the asbestos world.
Wait, the guy's father-in-law is a TB specialist at the CDC? That sort of blows whatever plausible ignorance claims he might have completely out the window.
Also I think that the large compensation due to people who were not yet ill was viewed by most involved as one of the big problems with the asbestos class-action stuff.
More fun -- this time, with the wedding announcement!
Canadian civil courts have historically been very tightfisted in awarding damages in personal injury cases. General damages are meagre, and punitives are very hard to obtain at all, and even when awarded are a fraction of what they are in the US.
Is this much different from the guy who has sex with women knowing he has aids?
It is no different.
I posted yesterday that I thought he was criminally liable in Canada. Here's what our Criminal Code says:
180. (1) Every one who commits a common nuisance and thereby
(a) endangers the lives, safety or health of the public, or
(b) causes physical injury to any person,
is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years.
Definition
(2) For the purposes of this section, every one commits a common nuisance who does an unlawful act or fails to discharge a legal duty and thereby
(a) endangers the lives, safety, health, property or comfort of the public; or
(b) obstructs the public in the exercise or enjoyment of any right that is common to all the subjects of Her Majesty in Canada.
This used to be the section that people who knowingly had sex without disclosing HIV status were charged with. Those people are now liable to be prosecuted for Aggravated Sexual Assault (which carries a 14 year, as opposed to a 2 year, maximum).
hmmmm.... i wonder what the odds of extradition are?
74: I think that's right. I didn't mean to suggest that people should be able to recover for exposure to illness even if they didn't get sick, but only that there's maybe some precedent for such a thing.
i wonder what the odds of extradition are?
Pretty damn high, if extradition is actually sought. I do some extradition work in Canada, and they are almost impossible to prevent...(at least from Canada to the US).
A bit of the other shoe dropping.
They told the guy (accurately) that he posed very little risk to anybody else, and seem to have given him the impression they were just doing some CYA.
I really think they're sending him out as a patsy so people don't question the monumental systemic fuck-ups involved in this case.
Who are "they", Tweety? I think the revulsion that people are expressing toward this guy is quite spontaneous, with no set up required. Nobody likes a carrier who takes risks with other peoples' health.
As his side of the story comes out that reaction may be tempered. His wife was on the radio sobbing this afternoon, and explaining how the CDC had refused to charter a boat for them to come home on.
Since he says his father recorded the initial meeting with health officials, no doubt we'll all soon know for certain exactly what kind of warning he got.
82: they being the people who fucked this up, whoever they might be. I'm thinking there's at least a couple people at CDC and the Border Patrol who're feeling fairly defensive right now.
Bullshit, Tweety. The guy had his father, who's also a lawyer, record his meeting with public healht officials and cross-examine them on whether they were asking him to stay home or ordering him to stay home. Overprivileged asshole all the way. A decent person does not get on an airplane knowing that he has a contagious and potentially fatal disease and that the experts are asking him not to do it, regardless of how wishy-washy they're being. His fucking wedding just isn't that important.
Which is not to say that there weren't public health fuckups too.
Look, I'm not denying the guy seems rather unappealing, but I'd like to wait until I actually know what got said when by who to who before judging. I am also disposed to wonder why the CDC would bring all this heat down on the guy unless they were trying to deflect it from themselves.
From the guy's side, it's just a pretty obvious "when in doubt, don't." I don't doubt that the CDC is trying to deflect blame that should also fall on them, but a goodly chunk of their sin was in letting an educated white guy get away with shit, and that reflects as poorly on him as it does on them.
The border guard is next in line for the same treatment Speaks has been getting. He's so out of a job.
CDC didn't have to "bring heat down" on Speaks. All they had to do was tell what happened. Not every strong public reaction is the product of manipulation.
Not that I want to defend the CDC's actions either. I just don't think they need to manipulate the media to create this response. Fear of contagion is very natural, and is itself probably going to become a serious social problem as resistant strains of various diseases become more widespread. I imagine it's already being played on by anti-immigration types.
I'm as willing as the next guy -- even if the next guy is Tweety -- to blame the gubmint, but I don't yet see any reason to doubt the CDC. It sounds as though both the officials who first talked to Speaks and the CDC people were dealing with the boundaries of their authority.
"even if the next guy is Tweety"
Careful, I might sweat on you.
Oh, right. I should have written, 'If the next guy is Tweety, and I'm wearing a wetsuit.'
Well, it seems to me that if this is genuinely accurate: "he was told he was not contagious or a danger to anyone, but that officials would prefer that he did not fly," I'm not entirely ready to say that makes him an asshole.
But the article doesn't specify whether the quoted bit refers to the CDC, who notified him when he was in Italy, or to whatever authorities spoke to him before he left the States.
In the context of two lawyers, father and son, meeting with public health officials with the tape recorder running? I suspect that a transcript of what was said would reveal something more like a series of pointed questions that forced the officials to admit that they couldn't say with any confidence that he was contagious or a danger but that the consequences of infecting others with a nasty strain of TB are severe enough that they would rather he didn't fly. It's possible that the public health folks were total bumbling idiots who told him it was perfectly safe to fly but they had to ask him not to in order to cover their cowardly bureaucratic butts, but it's not the most economical explanation of the facts we have. OTOH it is a very economical explanation of how someone with an advanced case of enwhitlement could convince himself that it was OK to disregard what he was being told.
Then, when he's in Italy, they call him to tell him to alert Italian health authorities, and don't even tell the Italians?
Seriously, they told the guy (accurately) that he was unlikely to infect anybody. Did they manage to tell him what it would mean if he infected somebody? Did they make sure that he understood that "unlikely" did not mean "basically zero, but I have to say this"? Because if they didn't make damn sure of both of those things, and you're talking about a distraught man with a potentially fatal illness believing he will be forced to die away from his family for no good reason, well, he starts sounding like a lot less of an asshole to me. Not everybody understands what Tuberculosis is; it's not like Ebola or something where it gets all this hype.
I mean, you really shouldn't fly on a plane with the flu, either, but we don't call people who do that assholes who should be jailed. We need to understand what he was told, and when, before judging.
they told the guy
This is what I'm on about. Whom do you mean by 'they'?
95 to 93. Tweety, are you seriously suggesting that educated people don't generally understand that TB is bad shit?
97: whoever it was who talked to him when he was in the US and in Italy.
98: no, of course not. But I would say it's certainly possible to graduate from college, law school, and pass the bar, without having ever learned what specific variety of bad shit TB is, how it's spread, what drug resistance implies, and so on. That information certainly should have been imparted to him by public health authorities, and it may well have been, in which case he's pretty much an asshole. That said, we don't know very much about what he was told, and yet everybody is already branding him a titanic asshole. He could just be an uninformed nincompoop who, in addition to having a very likely fatal disease, will be reviled by millions for the rest of his life.
But that's the thing. The people who talked to him in the US and the people who contacted him in Italy were different people operating under different information.
There are enough details out already to make that a low-likelihood explanation at best. He didn't need to fully understand the severity of what he had or the degree of risk to others. All he needed to understand was that public health experts were telling him not to fly. It's the part where he sets out to conduct his own risk analysis and decide for himself that his wedding plans are more important than the public health risk that makes him an asshole. If you're going to second-guess the experts, you have to get it right.
Yes. I'd be interested in knowing what each of them said, and when. I'd also be interested in knowing whether the people talking to him were the people who were supposed to be talking to him. If I had some more insight into those things, I'd feel better equipped to judge whether or not he was being an asshole.
From what I know so far, it seems clear that there were some pretty massive governmental screw-ups involved. When there are massive governmental screw-ups combined with the elevation of previously unknown individuals to zelig-like pariah status, I get suspicious that I'm not being told the whole story. This is all I am saying.
I mean, he probably is an asshole. I just would like to know more before I can claim to understand who is guilty of what here.
96: I'm not sure I follow the 2nd paragraph here. If he was told that he was unlikely to infect anyone and perhaps not told what it'd mean if he did infect someone and that unlikely doesn't mean impossible, how would he end up being a "distraught man with a potentially fatal illness believing he will be forced to die away from his family for no good reason"?
103: One did not cause the other. He described his situation in Italy as more-or-less what I described. He understood that he had a likely-fatal illness, and believed that the US was telling him that he could not re-enter the country. If he further believed that the chance of his infecting someone was basically nil, then his actions take on a very different character.
Sorry to be unclear.
some pretty massive governmental screw-ups involved.
Like what? The people who talked to Speaks before he left didn't have the same information as the people who talked to him in Italy. Should the CDC have dispatched a team of CDC ninjas to abduct and isolate him once it was determined that he had an extremely drug resistant strain? What were they were supposed to do once he was out of the country besides tell him that he had a dangerous communicable disease? The screw-up was on Speaks' part, and on the part of the border guard. Does one border guard's sympathy qualify as a "massive screw-up"?
The media and the public fell on this story like starving wolves, and given the propensity of the media to turn stories into simple fables of good and evil, the idea that the CDC even needs to manipulate the media in this matter is ridiculous.
An article in today's times gives an account that makes everybody look fairly bad. But in reference to Speaks, I think this is the main thing that pisses everyone off:
"Short of a military state where you have 24/7 surveillance on someone," Dr. Osterholm said, "you have to count on the good will of the individual."
And Speaks demonstrated that his good will stopped at the point where it became inconvenient.
On a jury I'd expect more information. We're playing by blog rules. His indignant statement from wherever he ended up in the US, plus his diversionary tactics, makes him seem like a "rules don't apply to me" guy.
It doesn't seem to me that there were massive government screwups. Initially they had no authority to tell him not to travel, though they suggested it, and they didn't know he had the resistant strain. In Italy they apparently had no authority either, and he defied them.
What I can't understand is what his wife was thinking about. You've just got married and you suddenly learn that your beloved has a serious infectious disease. So you say, "Wow, cool, let's go and fly round the world and you can take your chances getting treatment if you get worse."
110 -- b-but don't mock her! She has big breasts and a cute little surgical mask!
"On a jury I'd expect more information. We're playing by blog rules"
Half-assed. I try not to judge people before I have the applicable information whatever the medium.
I think that I have enough information to form an opinion at this level, though obviously not enough to send him to jail.
You've been pretty quick to judge the CDC without any evidence to speak of.
I'm pretty close to being ready to concede that the guy's an asshole, but it sure sounds like there's plenty of blame to around.