Legion World Forums LEGION OUTPOST Mission Monitor Board Quislet's Super Law Firm...of Space!

Sure, it is all in good fun ... until someone's eye gets poked out!!!!!!!!

Hey Quis, have you ever heard of the band Me First and the Gimme Gimmes? This was just recomended to me, and knowing that you have good taste in music (i.e. They Might Be Giants ), I was curious! Um, I'm out of legal questions for the moment

You really should not be using up the Legion World retainer with these no legal questions. I hear Stu is very dollar conscious.

No, I haven't heard of them. Let me know what you think of them.

Okay that's new. I could try it.

Now would they be able to get me for public exposure or would that be like double jeapardy or seeds of the spoiled fruit or ipso facto or some such seeings how I prevailed in the criminal trial?

The same set of facts can result in different crimes. Generally, all lesser included offense must be tried with the main offense. for example if you come running at me with the Persuader's Atomic Axe, swing, and lop off my right arm, you could be tried for Battery (The intended harmful or offensive touching) and Assault (Causing apprehention of an immediate harmful or offensive touching). Now if you are charged with just Battery, you could not be later charged with Assault.

However, say you grab me and throw me into a Legion Cruiser and fly me from Massachusetts to New York. Massachusetts can charge you under their kidnapping statute. After the trial in which you are acquitted, you loudly proclaim "HA HA HA I Did it!" Then the Federal government can charge you under the federal kidnapping statute, but Massachusetts can't re-try you. This is not double jeopardy, because Massachusetts and the US government are too separate sovereigns.

Ooh, no fair. BUT! If I do not take someone over a state line, THEN I can proclaim "I did it" and not be retried?

Wow, is RJ Brande in trouble. He could be held responsible for taking Shikari across dimensional, universal,galactical, solar systemal, planetary, AND state lines. Plus she's probably a minor.

That old fart, I knew he was a perv.

You still might not want to go all supervillian and yell out in Court after you have been acquitted "BWAH-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!! I did it, you fools!"

There might be some sort of statute (Like the federal car jacking statute that doesn't need you to cross state lines) to get you on. (and even if there isn't they would then go over you with a fine tooth comb to get you on something]

As for RJ Brande and Shikari, when did RJ use force or intimidation to move Shikari against her will?

1.) If Legion World (the comic book one) is in Earth's orbit, do they come under Earth law?

The U.P. seems to be like a United Nations (or perhaps the European Union?) i.e. an association of planets each with their own laws but maybe some common declarations or constitution. Whose laws apply on the grounds of the U.N. - American law in NYC, Swiss law in Geneva?

2.) Ra's al Ghul did a bit of damage when he escaped on Legion World, maybe killed some Sci Cops. Could he be sued by a family member of someone he killed? Or sued for property damage? Or would the Legion be responsible since it was their turf and their (M'onel's) decision to bring him there? Or would the Sci Cops be responsible for not guarding him properly?

3.) If Garth and Jan were considered dead, and their estates distributed to heirs, will the heirs have to give it back now? Or is Jan dead but Garth isn't, or vice-versa, or could Garth claim Jan's estate, or vice-versa?

1) Kramer, I assume like you do, that Legion World acts as the UN does in our time. I don't know what laws are applied in the case of a crime or tort being committed on UN Grounds.

2)Certainly the family of any guards killed could sue for wrongful death. The question becomes one of jurisdiction.

Let's assume that Legion World is considered sovereign with their own laws and that the families of the killed guards live in Metropolis. The families could sue in the Courts on Legion World. As Legion World has custody of Ra's, there is no problem with juridiction. But if the Families try to sue in Metropolis, the courts there would have to get jurisdiction from Legion World (through extradition).

Now considering that any assets Ra's has, has been seized or frozen by the UP, mostlikely, Ra's is not a good defendant to sue (i.e. no money to pay the judgement)

As for property damage, it seems that all the property Ra's destroyed was UP/Legion World property, so they would be the plaintiffs. Again seeing as Ra's assets are frozen/seized, it would be pointless to sue him.

As for the families suing Legion World and-or the Legion directly, they would have to show negligence on the part of Legion World.

3) At first I was going to say that this situation of returning from the dead is something that would only occur in comics. But then I thought of a situation where a person has gone missing and the next-of kin have him/her declared dead. (I believe a person has to be missing for at least 10 years to be declared dead) and what happens if they return after being declared dead and their assets distributed. I do not know the answer for this. There seems to be two outcomes: a) the court says "tough luck, mr. dead guy, you shouldn't have been gone so long" or b) the court says "OK Heirs, give back the stuff (or the monetary equivalent)"

As for the unique situtaion of Garth in Jan's body, I would assume that unless Jan put Garth in his will, Garth could not claim Jan's estate. And the determining factor for who gets what would be identity, who is this person. If it is Garth, then he gets Garth's stuff and that's it. If he's Jan, he gets Jan's stuff and thats it.

And here I always thought it was a mess because if the pre-nuptual agreement was voided because of her age, the marriage would have been too? Plus any problems caused by altering her documents in the first place.

Wow, Quislet, I'm impressed!

Could Lana Lang have sued to gain standard membership in the Legion rather than honorary or reserve or whatever they gave her?

She could have sued, but would have most likely lost.

Assuming that the Legion is part of the UP Government and not a private organization, Courts still have found that a position in the government (even low level positions) is not a property right and not something she could have relied on getting. Therefore, Lana could not force the Legion to grant her regular membership.

Any more questions before I break for the holidays?

As a member of the Church of the Last Son, am I obligated to be on Monitor Duty on Christmas Day, even if it's not my turn, so that Christian staff and/or legionnaires may take the day off? And why can't I get Last Son Day off, even if it isn't a statutory U.P. holiday?

I've read a quote by a law professor to a graduating class. "Three years ago, when asked a legal question, you would have had to answer truthfully 'I don't know.' Now after years of hard work and studying, you are fully qualified to answer the same legal question with 'It depends!'"

And that is the answer to your question. It depends. Do you have an employment contract or are you an at will employee. If you have an employment contract, your contract would determine the answer. If it isn't spelled out in the contract, then you would have to negotiate with your employer.

An at will employee does not have a contract. As an at will employee, you can quit at any time without notice. But your employer can also fire you for reason or no reason at all. Despite that there are certain reasons that an employer can not fire an at will employee. These are called the public policy exceptions. They are few though and usually tough to prove. Discrimination is one of the public policy exceptions. You would have to prove the discrimination in order to prevail, which might be harder if your employer provides other reasons for firing you (i.e. down turn in business, insubordination, refusing to perform the work). Also for religious discrimination, you must show that this is a deeply held belief and not just some fly-by-night dealy. (like the difference betweem Muslim women wearing head scarfs compared to a person saying "My church has a holy day this Friday called, um ..um.. um.. Holy Day, yeah that's it, Holy Day and I need it off."}

FC, for your particular problem, your best solution is to work out an agreement with your employer regarding which days you will work and which days you can have off. Unfortunately for you, your employer has the right to set her/his schedule as he/she sees fit (including last minute changes). If in this situation, you decide to refuse to work when you are scheduled or if you don't come in on a particular day, then your employer could fire you . You can then sue for wrongful termination, but as stated, it is difficult to prove.

You always have the option to quit and find employment with a more accomodating employer.

Better yet, buy them out and make 'em work on Christmas but give him Last Son Day off!

Quis, if I don't catch you on the boards tomorrow, I hope you have a wonderful holiday! I'll be gone from tomorrow night until late Sunday and may not have access until I get back home.

Hey! Who's the lawyer here?

Don't make me report you to the Legion World Board of Bar Overseers for practicing law without a licence.

Well, I hope the Fatal Five are hiring!

I slipped and fell in SHAKES. Can I sue the proprietors?

(Please let me know as soon as possible. I also slipped and fell in Café Cramer and the Starfield Lounge, so I want to be able to sue as soon as I can. Oh yeah, and I got scalded by some hot cocoa at chocolatte. Oh, and I got struck by some falling equipment when I was walking through The Beacon (still under construction)...)

Fortunately, we are well covered thanks to Policy Pam. Deal with her until the lawyer gets back.

Pam and I have been-- how shall I put this? Let's just say she's been underwriting me for the last couple of months...

Covering for all your liabilities, is she? :rolleyes:

First, in general you have about three years after the accident in which to sue. So if the fall just happened you don't have to crawl on your injured legs (If that is what was injured) to the courthouse.

As for whether you could successfully sue, it depends. What were the circumstances that caused you to fall? Was it a loose carpet? Some food on the floor that wasn't cleaned up? or was it a some liquid on the floor that you yourself made?

In a slip and fall case you are looking to prove negligence. When looking at whether a person (or a business) was negligent, you have to show that there was a duty of care, there was a breach of the duty, the breach was the actual cause of the injury, and that the breach was the proximate cause of the injury, and that there was an actual injury.

Showing a duty in this case is easy as business owe a duty to not allow injuries on their premises. Whether there was a breach is another question. There we use the reasonable and prudent person standard. The reasonable and prudent standard is what a reasonable and prudent person (or business in these cases)in the same or similar circumstances would do to avoid foreseeable harm to foreseeable people or property. An example of a breach of duty would be if a restaurant didn't promptly clean up a spilled drink because a reasonable and prudent person could foresee a customer (a foreseeable person) slipping on the liquid and hurting him/herself.

Next comes Causation. First, Cause in fact. here the "But for" Test is used. But for the ice cube on the floor, I would not have slipped. But for the the hot cocoa, I would not have burned my tongue.

Then Proximate cause. This is a trickier concept. It goes back to foreseeablility. You can forsee that a piece of ice on a floor could cause a person to slip and fall. Could you foresee that pushing a person onto a moving train would dislodge an unmarked package from his arm which would explode when it hit the tracks (because it contained fireworks) causing a sign 40 feet away to fall and strike a person on the head? Also there is what is called "intervening acts". Say you slip and fall in a restaurant and as you shakenly leave the restaurant and limp across the parking lot, a car sideswips you and takes off. Now your leg is broken rather than sprained. Here, the intervening act of the driver, prevents you from suing the reastaurant even though you can say "but for my slipping on the ice, I would have had two good legs to stand on and have been able to leap out of the path of the car."

Finally, you have to show that you were injured in some way. A doctor's report is good evidence of this.

Now the restaurant can try to show comparative negligence. That is that you did something to contribute to the accident. EX: He ran across the lobby after coming in from the slushy snow covered street. If the trier of facts finds you comparatively negliegent, the amount of money is reduced by that percentage of comparative negligence. Say, you have $10,000 in doctors bills but are found 20% comparatively negligent, then you would only collect $80,000. If you are found to be more then 50% negligent, then you collect nothing.

For your injuries from being at the Beacon's construction site, the defendant can argue that you "assumed the risk" because it is known that construction sites are dangerous places and you assumed the risk of injury when you when onto the site.

As for the hot cocoa at Chocolatte, I am assuming you have in mind the McDonald's hot coffee case. Some points regarding the McDonald's case. First McDonalds had their coffee brewed at a temperature too high for immediate comsumption (this was so that coffee taken away would still be hot when you reached your destination). McDonalds had warnings in the form of other people who had been burned by their hot coffee. And the woman who was burned had 2nd degree burns over a fairly large area of her body, which required her to be hospitalized for two days. So to successfully sue Chocolatte, you would need to show that Chocolatte purposefully made their hot cocoa too hot. We can assume that the McDonalds case would have been sufficient warning about the perils of making their hot cocoa too hot.

Oh my gosh! Thanks for the very informative and very thoughtful advice, Quis!

That's a lot of different factors to keep in mind -- I'm sure the average person has no idea that so many different considerations go into this kind of case.

Anyway, based on your advice, I suppose I probably don't have much of a legal leg to stand on. Based on the idea of "comparative negligence," those businesses could say that I was kind of... under the influence... when the slip and falls occurred...

Actually, I doubt a restaurant or bar that serves intoxicating beverages can use the fact that you were intoxicated as a defense (Unless you came in intoxicated). Such establishments have a duty to make sure you don't get too intoxicated, possibly based on specific statutes. In that case there is negligence per se. That's why bars cut people off.