Basically, if you have a trampoline on your property and a  kid trespasses on your land to use said trampoline and gets injured – you’re on the hook.  See Wikipedia.

It looked like this, except with many more lights. -Image from Wikipedia

A few weeks ago, I was in a bar that had a breathalyzer machine. For those of you on the fence about going to law school be advised this is what happens to your brain. Instead of seeing people having fun in a bar – the only thing I could see were liability issues and this was after I had a pint or four.

People were competing on said machine. Rumor has it that a .55 was blown.

For a small fee, one gets a straw and blows into the breathalyzer machine.  It provides the user with his BAC. The machine serves 2 purposes: (1) to let a user know it’s time to call a cab; and (2) to encourage drinking as users compete to see who can blow the highest number.

At the bar, the breathalyzer was placed out of sight of the bartenders (near the restrooms).  I suspect this is intentional. Do bar owners really want their bartenders knowing the exact BAC of their patrons? I think not.

In my opinion, this machine is an adult trampoline. Instead of youth rendering a person unable to appreciate risk it’s intoxication.  There’s very little utility to having such a machine in a bar. If a person is questioning his BAC – he shouldn’t drive.  The bar owner makes money by the fees generated from the machine and by selling more drinks. This machine encourages alcohol consumption.

If you were representing a bar, would the presence of a breathalyzer machine make you nervous?

Lawyer: When had it last snowed prior to your fall?

Prospective client: Oh, it was still snowing / just finished snowing / I walked on snow that I  could see at the time of the fall.

The winter of 2011 is a special defense.

People will drive today. Some of those people will not have shoveled off the top of their car. Said people are jerks.

Connecticut has a law requiring the removal of snow and ice from a car…….that doesn’t go into effect until December 31, 2013:

…The operator of any motor vehicle, as defined in section 14-1 of the general statutes, shall remove any accumulated ice or snow from such motor vehicle, including the hood, trunk and roof of such motor vehicle, so that any ice or snow accumulated on such vehicle does not pose a threat to persons or property while the vehicle is being operated on any street or highway of this state. Any operator who fails to remove accumulated ice or snow that poses such a threat shall be fined seventy-five dollars.

If the operator of a noncommercial motor vehicle violates the provisions of this section and snow or ice is dislodged from such vehicle and causes personal injury or property damage, the operator shall be fined not less than two hundred dollars but not more than one thousand dollars for each offense. If the operator of a commercial motor vehicle violates the provisions of this section and snow or ice is dislodged from such vehicle and causes personal injury or property damage, the operator shall be fined not less than five hundred dollars but not more than twelve hundred fifty dollars for each offense.

The law does not apply to parked vehicles or a vehicle being operated during a storm.

Even though the law doesn’t go into effect until one day short of 2014, don’t be a jerk, clean off your car.

In addition, a loyal reader points out that a 6 inch snow fall left on an average car adds 225 pounds of weight and reduces MPG by 4.5%.

While searching for a topic for today’s post, I came across this alarming statistic:

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety states that the crash rate per mile among drivers aged 16 to 19 is four times as high as for older drivers.  OLR Report on Teen Driving Behavior 08/27/2010

The correlation between a driver’s age and chances of a car accident is strong. Read the full OLR Report (linked to above) for more alarming data.

As a runner who loves West Hartford’s MDC trails the Blonski case is very near and dear to my heart.

Check out an excellent article by MariAnn Gail Brown on the legal issues surrounding the MDC trails. I say there’s a solution. Read the article to find out what it is….. Link.

With most of the world’s attention is focused on “football” today, I figure it’s as good of a time as any to bang out a Connecticut soccer law post.

In Connecticut, events on the pitch have made it to our high court –  with a friendly between Jaworski and Kiernan.

On May 16, 1993, during a game,  Kiernan made contact with  Jaworski during a recreational soccer game while Jaworski was shielding the soccer ball from the opposition so that the goalie on her team could retrieve the ball. As a result of this incident,  Jaworski suffered an injury to her left anterior cruciate ligament, which caused a 15 percent permanent partial disability of her left knee.

Jaworski then sued Kiernan for her injuries claiming among other things that Kiernan should be found liable for negligence because his actions were in violation of league rules.

The Supreme Court disagreed and offered this analysis of the game of soccer:

Soccer while not as violent a sport as football, 7 is nevertheless replete with occasions when the participants make contact with one another during the normal course of the game. When two soccer players vie for control of the ball, the lower limbs are especially vulnerable to injury. If a player seeks to challenge another player who has possession of the ball or seeks to prevent another player from gaining possession of the ball, the resulting contact could reasonably be foreseen to result in injury to either player.

The Court went on to find that the defendant could not be held liable for negligence only deliberate, wilful, or reckless conduct:

A final public policy concern that influences our decision is our desire to stem the possible flood of litigation that might result from adopting simple negligence as the standard of care to be utilized in athletic contests. If simple negligence were adopted as the standard of care, every punter with whom contact is made, every midfielder high sticked, every basketball player fouled, 410 every batter struck by a pitch, and every hockey player tripped would have the ingredients for a lawsuit if injury resulted. When the number of athletic events taking place in Connecticut over the course of a year is considered, there exists the potential for a surfeit of lawsuits when it becomes known that simple negligence, based on an inadvertent violation of a contest rule, will suffice as a ground for recovery for an athletic injury. This should not be encouraged.

So have fun playing soccer and go USA!

Last year, I was indifferent while the CT Legislature debated requiring restaurants to disclose nutritional information to patrons.  Lazily, I bought the argument that people know that a bacon double cheeseburger is bad for them.

I figured the issue was worth revisiting here now that Congress has stepped in and passed federal legislation requiring restaurants with over 20 or more outlets to disclose calorie counts on menus. I’ve come around to fully supporting the measure and here’s why:

Everyone knows the Big Mac isn’t health food. It contains 576 calories without cheese. But it’s unfair to the Big Mac that it has become the poster food for the calorie disclosure debate. It’s nowhere close to Friendly’s Caramel Cinnamon Swirl French toast (hereinafter referred to as the “Friendly’s French Tort.”

The Friendly’s French Tort contains 2090 calories, 57 grams of fat, 374 grams of carbs, and 214 grams of sugar. That information comes right from Friendly’s website. Add another 110 calories if you’d like syrup with that.

Click To Enlarge

Before reading that I knew the Friendly’s French Tort wasn’t a healthy option, but I had no idea just how bad it was. I exercise and watch what I eat. Nancy Clark’s  ”Nutrition for Marathoners” is on my coffee table. If I were ordering at Friendly’s, I would have guessed the French Tort was somewhere around 900 calories — an unhealthy choice at that — but under the right circumstances, I could fit it into my diet as a “treat.”

To put things in some perspective, I’m training for a marathon.  I’ll need lots of fuel that comes in the form of calories to complete my 26.2-mile goal. Running  a marathon, however, would barely (if at all) burn the number of calories in the French Tort with some syrup and a glass of orange juice.

Another way of looking at it:  a stick of butter contains about 810 calories. The French Tort is more or less equal the calorie equivalent of 2.5 sticks of butter.  I never would have guessed that.

With the new legislation, having the calorie information will allow me to make a healthier choice at the point of sale and I think that’s a good thing.

After watching the great game between the U.S. and Canada last night, I decided to write a post on Connecticut hockey law.

I looked at cases involving the Hartford Whalers, various cases about people hitting each other with hockey sticks, and Jaworski v. Kiernan. Unfortunately Jawaorkski isn’t a case about hockey, it’s a case about soccer.

While reading the case, I came across this gem:

In Walsh, both the plaintiffs and the defendant’s golf balls were roughly one hundred feet from the green. “Standing by the defendant’s ball, the plaintiff and [the] 412defendant discussed the club the defendant should use and the defendant selected his mashie niblick. The plaintiff, seeing the defendant about to prepare to take his shot, said, `Now put it on the green,’ and walked away at almost right angles to the direct and intended line of flight from the ball to the green. Without calling `Fore,’ the defendant swung at his ball, shanked it so that it was deflected at almost a 90 degree angle to the right and hit the plaintiff in the eye as he turned to look back over his left shoulder just as he had reached his ball, causing him serious injury.”

A mashie niblick?!?!? I’ve never heard of such a thing. Then again, I don’t golf. Fortunately for me, Justice Callahan saw fit to define “mashie niblick” for readers in a footnote:

Mashie niblick: “[A]n iron golf club with a loft between those of a mashie and a niblick—called also number six iron.” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary.

It would be great if we decided to reintroduce the term “mashie niblick” into our lexicon. You’d hear things like “Wow, that’s a nice mashie niblick” or “sale on mashie niblicks” or “I just got a new mashie niblick.”

Did the plaintiff in Walsh go home that night and tell his wife that he was injured by a “mashie niblick?”

One can never FOREsee what you’re going to read on this site.

February in Connecticut  means snow. Today’s forecast calls for heavy snow this afternoon. So here’s a PSA:

Not only is driving without your headlights on really stupid, potentially negligent, and dangerous – it’s illegal in Connecticut:

Every vehicle upon a highway within this state shall display such lighted lamps and illuminating devices as may be required … at any time during periods of precipitation, including, but not limited to, periods of snow, rain or fog. Conn. Gen. Stat. Sec. 14-96a.

The fact that you can see where you’re going without your headlights is only half the battle. The fact that others may not be able to see you puts both you and everyone around you at risk for an accident.

Please drive safely.

I give the State credit for not prosecuting the owner of the chimpanzee, Sandra Herold. It speaks well for our system of criminal justice in Connecticut.

At its core, the State had a weak criminal case against Ms. Herold. She legally owned a pet and the State’s investigation concluded there was no record of any prior attacks by the chimp. If you substitute dog or cat for chimp it becomes clearer that any criminal liability is tenuous at best.

Imagine you own an otherwise well behaved dog and one day the dog snaps and bites a person.  Should you go to jail? Would the State be any safer if you went to jail?

Our civil laws provide the victim in this case an adequate venue to be compensated for her injuries. Though, I’m sure that money, no matter how much, is ultimately an inadequate remedy for Ms. Nash.

Connecticut does not elect its prosecutors.  Having a weak case against a defendant is different from no case against a defendant. I’ll submit to you the State could have prosecuted Sandra Herold if it wanted to. I’m not sure they’d win a conviction but I’m sure they could have charged her.

It could have been a politically popular move for a prosecutor seeking election to charge Sandra Herold. The case is high profile and the injuries to Ms. Nash are horrific. Fortunately for all State’s Attorney, David Cohen wasn’t seeking re-election.  For all I know, he may have made the same call if he were seeking re-election but I’m happy he didn’t have to factor that into a decision whether or not to prosecute.

Every tragedy doesn’t have to result in a criminal prosecution.