Need a Great Torts Exam Fact Pattern?
posted by Mark Edwards
Every once in a while, God inexplicably smiles upon law professors. To wit:
Driver of school bus full of middle school basketball players hits deer. Driver doesn’t stop. Deer gets caught beneath bus. Deer ruptures fuel line. Bus, on fire, pulls into school parking lot, and explodes.
Best of all: no one was hurt.
December 16, 2008 at 3:03 pm
Posted in: Teaching
Print This Post
Responses (6)
Patrick S. O'Donnell - December 16, 2008 at 3:39 pm
I’m assuming the deer was hurt.
It sounds as if a fuel line was ruptured, but the story says the deer under the bus “may have broken an oil line.”
Patrick S. O'Donnell - December 16, 2008 at 3:39 pm
I’m assuming the deer was hurt.
It sounds as if a fuel line was ruptured, but the story says the deer under the bus “may have broken an oil line.”
Mark Edwards - December 16, 2008 at 11:44 pm
The deer, I believe is no longer among us. I should have said, no one with standing was hurt.
Patrick S. O'Donnell - December 17, 2008 at 12:26 am
That “standing” thing can change, as we learned from Christopher Stone’s “Should Trees Have Standing?–Toward Legal Rights for Natural Objects,” 45 S. Cal. L. Rev. 450 (1972). Cf.: Steven M. Wise, Rattling the Cage: Toward Legal Rights for Animals (Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books, 2000), as well as Cass Sunstein, “Can Animals Sue?” in Cass Sunstein and Martha C. Nussbaum, eds., Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Directions (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004): 251-262.
Patrick S. O'Donnell - December 17, 2008 at 12:26 am
That “standing” thing can change, as we learned from Christopher Stone’s “Should Trees Have Standing?–Toward Legal Rights for Natural Objects,” 45 S. Cal. L. Rev. 450 (1972). Cf.: Steven M. Wise, Rattling the Cage: Toward Legal Rights for Animals (Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books, 2000), as well as Cass Sunstein, “Can Animals Sue?” in Cass Sunstein and Martha C. Nussbaum, eds., Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Directions (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004): 251-262.
Mark Edwards - December 18, 2008 at 3:21 pm
In this case, though, we’d have to find that the deer’s estate has standing. I don’t think anyone has proposed standing for the estates of dead animals. YET. I feel an article coming on . . .
Leave a Reply