Timeline for answer to Who are the people responsible after a lethal incident, cause through a series of events? by MSalters
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
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16 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| 18 hours ago | comment | added | MSalters | @WoJ: While a bit ironic, consider a case where P convinces R to go to a home in a state with a "castle doctrine". R arrives there with a gun, and the home owner then shoots R. In this case, it is far easier to argue that the shooting was foreseeable. | |
| 18 hours ago | comment | added | WoJ | It's pretty well established in Dutch law that you can't just go out in a park and shoot someone. Ah, crap. | |
| yesterday | comment | added | bdb484 | @infinitezero Swatting is a very different scenario. If you'd like an analysis on that one, you're probably better off posting a separate question. | |
| yesterday | comment | added | infinitezero | @bdb484 what about swatting? Arguably a prank call and could potentially lead to fatal shootings by law enforcement officers. | |
| yesterday | comment | added | Darth Pseudonym | Just to put it here, the relevant case for US law is almost certainly Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co where it was established that liability can't attach to a unforeseeable outcome. | |
| yesterday | comment | added | R.M. | @bdb484 That highlights that the culpability of F, while asked about in the question, is not (explicitly) treated in the answer. If F knew that R was prone to violence when provoked, could F be guilty even though the intermediary P is not? (Can the responsibility "skip over" P?) - The answer would be improved by explicitly addressing F's situation. | |
| yesterday | comment | added | bdb484 | Oh, yes, I definitely agree on that point. I don't know about the Netherlands, but I'd expect to see charges against him if this had happened in the US. | |
| yesterday | comment | added | Barmar | @bdb484 It doesn't contradict, just adds that it might be liability for the relative. | |
| yesterday | comment | added | bdb484 | @barmar I'm not sure how that's different from what I said: no liability for P, but that could change if the information was communicated to him. | |
| yesterday | comment | added | Barmar | @bdb484 But if they didn't communicate this to P, the relative might bear some liability, but P wouldn't. Although the more steps you have in this Rube Goldberg murder, the less likely the expectation of a particular result is. | |
| yesterday | comment | added | bdb484 | Note that OP's scenario differs from the real-world scenario in one important respect: It appears P got the shooter's number from a relative, who might reasonably be presumed to have known that the shooter had a history of mental illness serious enough to require involuntary commitment and was off his meds. If the relative communicated that information to P, that might completely change the answer. | |
| yesterday | history | edited | bdb484 | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| yesterday | comment | added | bdb484 | I expect that the answer would be the same in any common-law jurisdiction. A prank call cannot reasonably be expected to lead to the murder of unrelated third parties, so you'd probably have mens rea and proximate-causation problems preventing any liability from running to P, especially in the United States, where P would probably also have First Amendment protection. | |
| yesterday | comment | added | Excellor | I've accepted this answer, since it applies to the real-world case it's based on. I hope that doesn't stop people from answering with other jurisdictions. | |
| yesterday | vote | accept | Excellor | ||
| yesterday | history | answered | MSalters | CC BY-SA 4.0 |