opinions
don't sue me, bro OWNING UP ISN'T A GAME OF HOT POTATO James Martin Ă— Writer
Ă— Ksenia Kozhevnikova
Who's more foolish: the fool, or the fool who
possible. Shit happens. This simple and ugly truth is an inescapable axiom that dominates the reality we all inhabit. We don't like it when shit happens, but there's more than enough to go around and often nothing we can do to stop it. Maybe that's why we get so worked up when it appears that there might be someone else to blame for said shit. Sometimes it's warranted; go ahead and sue if some product or activity includes a truly hidden danger that isn't obvious to the layperson. But if you can't accept the personal risk in such things as falling during physical activity, cutting yourself while using tools, or getting into an accident while driving, maybe you shouldn't be taking part in such activities, regardless of who or what is incentivizing you to do so.
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not attend to him in a timely manner. Perhaps the organizers made the competition (and the circumstances surrounding it) riskier than it could have been through their actions and/or lack of preparation. On the other hand, maybe everything should have been fine the way it was, and this was just a freak accident that couldn't have reasonably been avoided had Aulakh entered the competition under improved circumstances. A large part of Aulakh's family's lawsuit against the event's organizers focuses on the fact that they did not warn Aulakh of the potential risks of competing in an eating competition. This is where the weight of their argument begins to thin. Anyone with any experience in consuming food (a substantial portion of the population, surely) should have some notion that speed-eating comes with some risk of discomfort, vomiting, or choking. For this type of competition, one should expect that people be able to make an informed decision without the need for a legal disclaimer. We can't expect to live in a world where we are constantly coddled instead of being made to use our own sound judgement. There's a great danger in setting a precedent that everything is 100 per cent safe unless otherwise noted, because such a fantasy world is simply not
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able to point fingers (if they have any left) when their chosen activity leads to harm. But for examples without as much obvious inherent risk, reallife instances of this debate being fiercely played out are not difficult to find. For a local example, take the story of Surrey resident Samaljit Aulakh. In November 2012, Aulakh choked during an eating contest at a local Diwali event and ended up in a coma that left him with severe brain damage. A year later, his family filed a lawsuit against the event's organizers. The competition Aulakh participated in wasn't about eating a grossly massive quantity of food but rather just six Timbit-sized desserts, with the challenge being that the competitors had to lean down and race to finish eating first without the use of their hands. Aulakh completed the competition and was declared the winner immediately before showing signs of distress, at which time he was instructed that if he did not contain all the food then he would lose his prize. Aulakh attempted to comply with the organizers' instructions in order to not lose out on a new iPhone, but proceeded to throw up and choke. His family alleges that the first aid attendants at the festival were not adequately trained to assist him and that they did
the capilano courier
follows him? Or, more importantly, which fool is at fault if the second fool comes to harm while partaking in the first fool's hijinks? Was the first fool negligent when he didn't warn his follower that what they were doing was foolish, or should the second fool just have to live with the consequences of his choice to follow the original fool in his obviously foolish adventure in the first place? The issue is framed lightly in this silly example, but matters of liability are serious matters in the real world. People get hurt, then angry, and then they want to pursue legal action. The question of "with whom does the fault lie?" when things go wrong is often a divisive one that puts heavy consequences on the line over accountability that is rarely clear-cut. There is an entire subset of the legal profession that specializes in the process of sorting out who's culpable and who isn't in such situations. People should just suck it up and take some personal responsibility for their actions rather than suing to shift the blame onto others when things take a turn for the worse, but when it comes to specific cases, the waters can become murky. Clearly, somebody who engages in the likes of shark wrestling or chainsaw juggling shouldn't be
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