Please read the case and understand the facts before you make any assumptions. Please.

The media makes money off of stories like this. Ask yourself, do you think they would have any incentive to give you the story in a twisted and misleading manner?

I certainly understand your point (the McDonalds coffee scalding case comes unpleasantly to mind), but I''m hard-pressed to think of any excuse for why this particular case wasn''t laughed out of court.

The only one that comes to mind is that it could be an incredibly crime-ridden, dangerous neighborhood, but, since these kids'' parents let two teenage girls walk around at 10:30 delivering cookies, I''m guessing it''s closer to Mayberry than Hell''s Kitchen. In that case, the defendants might have expected the plaintiff to be extremely frightened by a knock at 10:30 at night and a mysterious package at the door; otherwise, the girls would have absolutely no reason to think anyone might be damaged by their actions.

The plaintiff''s nervous condition is her own problem - otherwise, what''s to stop her from suing the person who taps on her shoulder in the elevator, or the people yelling ""Surprise!"" at her birthday party?

It''s fair, the judge might simply be nuts in this case. It''s just that without reading the case and understanding the background (as opposed to the media report of the case), I''ll always take these ""outrageous"" decisions with a grain of salt.

P.S. Okay, dear lord, here I go. There''s often more than meets the eye with the legal reasoning behind these things as well. The concept of negligence does not necessarily take into account whether the person performing the negligent act had a pure heart; the question is whether the person acted as a reasonably prudent person would. The story notes that the judge declined to award punitive damages, and only ordered costs covering the medical expenses (the woman ended up in the hospital the next day if I recall the story correctly). In deciding what a reasonably prudent person would do (without regard to whether there was malicious intent), ask yourself whether it is normal or reasonable to knock on someone''s door at 10:30 at night and go running off. What if it hadn''t been the neighbor girls. Imagine another scenario - what if it had been a burgler, testing to see if someone was home? What if it had been a stalker? What if it had been neighborhood hooligan children doing the same, and the result of any of the three acts had been the woman going to the hospital? The problem is that when you get into 10:30 at night, and the kids not being at the door when the woman answered, a judge might have thought that it was not unreasonable for the woman to be a bit frightened, and that a reasonably prudent person would not have performed the door knocking, because they would realize and forsee that knocking on someone''s door at 10:30 at night might frighten the hell out of someone.

There may be extraneous information, but it''s either the woman''s problems had nothing to do with the girls, or the girls did way more than the article let on. Nobody reasonable or prudent would be fear that knocking on someone''s door would put them in the hospital, it''s just silly.

You are not responding to the legal standard presented. I could punch someone I don''t know on the arm really hard; I wouldn''t expect it to send them to the hospital. If they are a hemophiliac, it would. You take your plaintiff as you find them, not as a guaranteed healthy, robust, 25 year old man in perfect health. This is another well established legal standard, and for good reason.

I for one would be very unhappy to live in a world where you could do whatever you want because you don''t ""assume"" that it will cause any problems.

You are completely missing the point of how legal standards work, and you are mixing standards between civil and criminal liability. The law (civil, not criminal) does not care whether you ""know she was freaking insane."" That''s the entire point; you need to act in the world with an understanding that there could be a wide range of repercussions. You do not get to assume that someone is in perfect health, has no history of heart troubles, etc. I am quite happy that you do not get to assume this; I do not want people doing things to me or my they should not be doing because they ""assume"" they know better.

In other words, to a decent extent, it doesn''t matter whether you knew she was of fragile health. That''s the point behind, ""you take your plaintiff as you find them."" Also known as the glass jawed plaintiff rule. If you take a punch at someone in a bar fight, and that person happens to be weaker than average, have brittle bones, etc., then that''s too bad for you. You don''t get to assume that you are taking a swing at a perfectly healthy well muscled man. I''d hope the reasons behind this are obvious.

Where does it end with your logic? Do I get to walk up to someone''s window in the middle of the night and pound on it? Sure, it might be wrong, but should I be responsible for a heart attack, because someone in good health isn''t likely to suffer one from that happening, even if it is a bit scary?

I''m just trying to imagine what sort of verdict would have come from this had it been a policeman knocking on her door. You know, a patrolcar just checking up on the neighborhood because there had been reports of teenage women running wild. Would there still be a case? An officer of the law, doing his sworn duty... Probably not. THAT''S what makes this a sad case.

Civil legal standards shmandards. In this instance, without further information on the case, I call BS.

I would have left her a flaming bag of dog sh*t.

I actually heard (can called ) about this on Friday on 850KOA and added my $20 to their legal fee fund.

What a bunch of idiots. You know, I accept the fact that there are people in this world like this lady.. but I cannot accept the fact that we have judges like this. He is the one who should be strung up...

PAR

No need to apologize, I get your point. I think I agree with the assessment that this case suffered from the wrong decision (based on what little I know of the facts). I was just pointing out that I do not think the decision is so far out there as some people think. Although I disagree in this case, I could see someone (mistakenly in my mind) saying that: (i) it is not reasonable to knock on doors and disappear at 10:30 p.m.; and (ii) the reason it is not reasonable is that it caused fright and emotional distress, and if you happen to freak out some old woman, then you should pay the price.

I was just trying to point out that while I disagree with the decision, I understand it, if that makes sense.

Sadly this case is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to outlandish lawsuits. My father works with the Canadian Risk Insurance Management Service and they deal with these kinds of things all the time. This is one of my favourite cases that he told me:

A woman here in town was pulling out of a Canadian Tire parking lot when an accident occured at the intersection near the store. When the woman heard the accident (she was still in the parking lot), she turned her head quickly to see where the noise was coming from, and ended up hurting her neck. The woman then proceeded to sue Canadian Tire for damages and distress.

My father summed up how far society has declined in such a short period of time with this statement:

""Fiveteen years ago if you slipped outside a store and fell on your ass, you would quickly get up, brush yourself off and hope that no one saw you. In today''s age, when you fall; you stay there until people come over and see you there, and can then become witnesses for you in your lawsuit against the store.""

I agree with Sly on the difference between civil and criminal laws and how it is indeed unreasonable to expect every individual to have the physical and emotional constituion of a healthy, well adjusted 25 year old. I also agree with Pyro that we cannot treat everyone as if they are made out of glass and believe that every individual is one harmless gesture away from a medical emergency.

The elderly woman being disucssed in this thread even stated that she sued to teach the kids a lesson. Yes she did suffer physical, but really, suing girl guides to teach them a lesson because they tried to sell her cookies? It is not hard to tell that the woman suffers from a cardiac condition that does not take much to trigger. While a knocking on the door at 10:30pm at night may be out of the ordinary, there are many other scary things that happen to someone during the day than that.

Sadly the saga continues

http://www.9news.com/acm_news.aspx?OSGNAME=KUSA&IKOBJECTID=e3cf0639-0abe...

That last 5 paragraphs are unbelievable to read. The husband of the lady was making harassing phone calls against the girls and their parents? Restraining orders having to be filed? All over free cookies! Wow

The best part of it all is the last paragraph. Mrs. Young says that she cannot believe this turned into such a fiasco. Imagine, suing girls who baked you cookies even after they agreed to pay your medical expenses. What did this woman think would happen? She would get a purple heart for surviving such an ordeal and a congressional medal for suing those little monsters?

Mrs. Young also states now that she is getting threats against her life and will have to move out of town. As I said earlier, there are more stressful things in life then getting a knock on the door at 10:30pm.

I wonder is she is going to start a lawsuit against the town?

Just an update - apparently the ""victim''s"" story is a bit different than we''ve heard:

""Things went sour when they approached the Young home. Wanita Renea Young, 49, said she heard someone banging on the door late in the evening and saw ""shadowy figures"" who refused to answer when she called out to them. The teens later said they did not answer because they wanted the treats to be a surprise.

A frightened Young said she spent the night at her sister''s home, then went to the hospital the next morning because she was still shaking and had an upset stomach.""

Slyfrog is of course right with regards to the moral content in civil judgements, especially in the United States which I believe has a far more (too) relaxed approach to awarding damages. The thought of ""punitive damages"" is anaethema given that damages are to recompense a claimant for their loss, not to retaliate or seek bloody vengeance on the defendant as matter of public policy!

If the she suffered ""shaking and an upset stomach"" there are two ways in which she could claim, though I''d hasten to add that I doubt this is the same in the US as it is here in E&W and equally that such a case would never get past the paperwork stage.

Firstly the rule in ""Wilkinson v Downton"" which I''m sure you have an equivalent in the US, which is basically intentionally causing nervous shock which results in some kind of physical loss/damage. Just to put it into perspective that case had some guy telling a wife that her husband had been crushed in a horrible accident for ""a practical joke"", which resulted her in collapsing and being seriously ill for some time. Not really ""oh those shadows scare me"".

Secondly a claim in negligence which frankly would be incredibly hard to get as courts always apply very high standards when awarding for mere distress. They''d have to prove that those shadowy people had a duty-to-be-careful to her, that they''d breached that duty, that they''d caused her ""upset"" and that they didn''t have a defense.
Thats a long winded way of saying that they haven''t a whelk''s chance in a supernova of getting it!

Both of these approaches are called ""Torts"" which is ye olde legal french for saying ""A duty"". Just like Slyfrog wrote, if you tick all the boxes for failing in your legal duty, then you are strictly liable. Defendant''s intent and the intent of the claimant is irrevelant as these are ""common law"" not ""equitable"" breaches.
Though I''m sure he just forgot to add in that if the claimant is engaged in criminal behaviour or had consented to be scared witless at the time they can''t generally can''t claim. So if our rather nervous sounding victim had been a burglar in the house at the time, or if she had agreed by signing up to some april fools competitive scare-o-thon, then her intention would have been important for the defendants defense.

Man I should lay off this legal thing for awhile, I''m sure a dozen threads have come up in the last month and I can''t help but post as my mind is jampacked with all this useless knowledge for some tests I''ve got coming up!
I''m just glad nobody has posted anything regarding co-ownership of land trusts or I''d be compelled into writing 13 pages of revision notes from my head just to keep me sharp.

Take all this with a pinch of salt of course, the reason the real GWJ lawyers don''t write this stuff is that they know that if anyone took advice based on what they''d written, they''d be liable for it.