So last weekend, I was involved in an accident. I was named the victim and completely faultless. Though I felt fine, I went to the hospital to be checked out. 11 X-rays later, they determined that I had no accident-related injuries.
2 days later, I got a call saying that a radiologist reread the x-rays and discovered arthritic changes in my spine. My question:
Can I sue the girl that hit me for making me realize a physical defect that may impede my career? If I hadn't been in the accident, I wouldn't have known that I have arthritis of the spine, and I wouldn't hold off on doing things. Now that I know, I'm afraid to lift heavy objects, to contort myself the way it's sometimes necessary, etc. I'm asymptomatic, so I wouldn't have had any idea about it without the x-rays. Is it a reasonable case? Is it winnable? Is it worth it?
Law-related question
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Kitt
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Law-related question
Real life quotes, courtesy of the PetsHotel:
"Drop it, you pervert!"
"Ma'am? Ma'am! You are very round."
"It's a hump-a-palooza today."
"Everybody get away from the poop bucket!"
"Drop it, you pervert!"
"Ma'am? Ma'am! You are very round."
"It's a hump-a-palooza today."
"Everybody get away from the poop bucket!"
No, probably not, and no.
There is then a need to guard against a temptation to overstate the economic evils of our own age, and to ignore the existence of similar, or worse, evils in earlier ages. Even though some exaggeration may, for the time, stimulate others, as well as ourselves, to a more intense resolve that the present evils should no longer exist, but it is not less wrong and generally it is much more foolish to palter with truth for good than for a selfish cause. The pessimistic descriptions of our own age, combined with the romantic exaggeration of the happiness of past ages must tend to setting aside the methods of progress, the work of which, if slow, is yet solid, and lead to the hasty adoption of others of greater promise, but which resemble the potent medicines of a charlatan, and while quickly effecting a little good sow the seeds of widespread and lasting decay. This impatient insincerity is an evil only less great than the moral torpor which can endure, that we with our modern resources and knowledge should look contentedly at the continued destruction of all that is worth having. There is an evil and an extreme impatience as well as an extreme patience with social ills.
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paladin2019
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Serious Paul
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UncleJoseph
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Kitt, suing someone who struck you for being the cause of you finding out you had a pre-existing condition would be like suing your employer for making you get a blood test, which then revealed you already had HIV. In order to win a lawsuit, you have to convince a jury (unless you settle out of court) that you suffered some damages (i.e. monetary loss, or severe emotional distress) due to their actions or negligence. Getting x-rays as a matter of course after an accident, which then reveal you had a pre-existing condition, is not going to show that you suffered some loss due to the accident. This would be a frivolous lawsuit, which any decent attorney would not agree to file. However, in the United States, you can sue anyone at anytime for anything...whether you win the lawsuit or not is another matter. And there are plenty of less-than-ethical attorneys out there waiting with drooling mouths and outstretched helping hands.
Lawsuits like what you're proposing make a mockery of our justice system, and are much of what's wrong with civil law the way it's currently practiced.
What you really need to focus on is finding out how your arthritis is going to affect your everyday life. A simple x-ray reading from a tech at the emergency room is not enough of a diagnosis. You need follow up care with a physician/specialist so you can determine how this is going to affect your lifestyle, and if there is any treatment or physical therapy from which you could benefit.
Lawsuits like what you're proposing make a mockery of our justice system, and are much of what's wrong with civil law the way it's currently practiced.
What you really need to focus on is finding out how your arthritis is going to affect your everyday life. A simple x-ray reading from a tech at the emergency room is not enough of a diagnosis. You need follow up care with a physician/specialist so you can determine how this is going to affect your lifestyle, and if there is any treatment or physical therapy from which you could benefit.
If you take away their comforts, people are just like any other animal.
What would have happened if she hadn't hit you? You wouldn't know about the condition, and you would have continued to lift heavy objects and contort your spine. If the fears which result in your current caution have any validity, you would have been unknowingly damaging yourself, and would end up disabled in any case. If your fears are irrational, and lifting and contorting would not injure you, then your caution is unwarranted and she is not to be held accountable.
Ultimately, the arthritis isn't her fault. Any caution on your part isn't her fault, as those are your choices. Her only fault is unintentionally making you aware of a medical condition that was not her responsibility. To attempt to place any blame for your physical caution on her when her actions were unknowing and her responsibility minimal would be to do a grievous disservice to someone who frankly did you a great favor - if your caution is warranted. [If it is unwarranted, again, she is not to be held responsible for your irrational responses.]
Stop looking for someone to blame for your knowledge of your pre-existing condition, and accept the condition and learn to rationally deal with it. Accept responsibility for your own condition.
[My instinct was to assume this was a joke, so absurd is the premise, so heinous the considered action, but on further review I decided, on balance, it was probably better to treat it seriously, whether it was meant in jest or not.]
Ultimately, the arthritis isn't her fault. Any caution on your part isn't her fault, as those are your choices. Her only fault is unintentionally making you aware of a medical condition that was not her responsibility. To attempt to place any blame for your physical caution on her when her actions were unknowing and her responsibility minimal would be to do a grievous disservice to someone who frankly did you a great favor - if your caution is warranted. [If it is unwarranted, again, she is not to be held responsible for your irrational responses.]
Stop looking for someone to blame for your knowledge of your pre-existing condition, and accept the condition and learn to rationally deal with it. Accept responsibility for your own condition.
[My instinct was to assume this was a joke, so absurd is the premise, so heinous the considered action, but on further review I decided, on balance, it was probably better to treat it seriously, whether it was meant in jest or not.]
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Kitt
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It was mainly a joke. I was talking to the other girl, Jes, who had been in my car about the damage to my car. We brought up the fact that the other driver's parents said that they would pay for the damage if it was reasonable. She asked what I would do if they said they'd pay but didn't. I said I'd sue and probably win because I'd make the parents sign a contract saying they'd pay within a month.3278 wrote:My instinct was to assume this was a joke...
Jes asked if I would sue for other damages. I said it all depended on how long I was without the car, if it created a problem with gettiing to school, the theatre where I work, etc. She asked if I would sue for the reasons mentioned in this post. I laughed it off, but she kept insisting that I should try. Extreme emotional distress and whatnot. Again, I laughed it off. She told me to think about it. I posted it here in as serious a manner as I could with the intention of showing it to her if I got enough negative responses.
She's young and naive, and really doesn't understand how lawsuits work. Like many people nowadays, she's the type to want to sue for being pushed at a dance club. So thank you all for your responses. With any luck, she'll read it and learn.
Real life quotes, courtesy of the PetsHotel:
"Drop it, you pervert!"
"Ma'am? Ma'am! You are very round."
"It's a hump-a-palooza today."
"Everybody get away from the poop bucket!"
"Drop it, you pervert!"
"Ma'am? Ma'am! You are very round."
"It's a hump-a-palooza today."
"Everybody get away from the poop bucket!"
Oh, good, because it would have been a remarkably cunt-like thing to seriously consider.Kitt wrote:It was mainly a joke.
Then she's a cunt, and you shouldn't hesitate to tell her so. Naivety is forgivable, certainly, but lack of exposure to the practicalities of the law doesn't excuse what is essentially personal-responsibility-abdicating behavior.Kitt wrote:She asked if I would sue for the reasons mentioned in this post.
Each individual's life is their own, and the responsibilities of that life are personal, not collective, and certainly not arbitrarily re-assignable based on desire to have more buckets of ducats.