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Community => Society and History => Topic started by: Askold on March 26, 2017, 02:44:49 am

Title: Tennessee: "let's kill a teen and then make her family pay for it"
Post by: Askold on March 26, 2017, 02:44:49 am
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/03/24/billed-for-guardrail-death/99601304/

Note that the title is slightly exaggerated. What actually happened is that a teen crashed her car and died when impacting with a guard rail and now her family is billed for the replacement.

...But there are more things that are wrong with this. You see, the rail isn't safe. It doesn't work on speeds over 60mph and the bit of road where the accident happened has a speed limit of 70mph. And the railings of that type used to work until the company that made them changed the blueprints to make the product cheaper, a change that also made them more dangerous (you know, the opposite of what they are supposed to do.)

...There are so many things that are wrong with this.
Title: Re: Tennessee: "let's kill a teen and then make her family pay for it"
Post by: dpareja on March 26, 2017, 02:46:00 am
Hey, we've got to pay for those tax cuts for the rich somehow!
Title: Re: Tennessee: "let's kill a teen and then make her family pay for it"
Post by: Katsuro on March 28, 2017, 10:00:33 am
Ignoring the heartlessness of this for a moment...in Tennessee you can be billed for something someone else did just because they're related to you? WTF?  Plus, things like that are paid for by taxes...which presumably the family pays so effectively they're being billed twice.
Title: Re: Tennessee: "let's kill a teen and then make her family pay for it"
Post by: Canadian Mojo on March 28, 2017, 10:24:47 am
Ignoring the heartlessness of this for a moment...in Tennessee you can be billed for something someone else did just because they're related to you? WTF?  Plus, things like that are paid for by taxes...which presumably the family pays so effectively they're being billed twice.

They actually billed the dead girl. In fairness, they also freely admit it was a big fuck-up to do that. My guess is that the accident didn't get flagged as fatal in the report so a repair bill was sent out or it was meant to go directly to her insurance company to deal with.

I wonder if the accident itself has the makings of a good negligence suit for the family.
Title: Re: Tennessee: "let's kill a teen and then make her family pay for it"
Post by: Katsuro on March 28, 2017, 10:35:11 am
Ignoring the heartlessness of this for a moment...in Tennessee you can be billed for something someone else did just because they're related to you? WTF?  Plus, things like that are paid for by taxes...which presumably the family pays so effectively they're being billed twice.

They actually billed the dead girl. In fairness, they also freely admit it was a big fuck-up to do that. My guess is that the accident didn't get flagged as fatal in the report so a repair bill was sent out or it was meant to go directly to her insurance company to deal with.

I wonder if the accident itself has the makings of a good negligence suit for the family.

Ok but even so,  the authorities billing accident victims at all??  Seems kinda messed up unless you can prove they did something criminal like drink driving or "driving without due care and attention" etc, in which case that's a court case and a fine, rather just simply being sent the bill for repairs.  I've never heard of anyone over here being billed for an accident (outside of a criminal prosecution resulting in a fine of course).  And I don't mean insurance excesses or anything like that either.  I've been in car accidents and never once thought "I hope the council doesn't make us pay for any of this". 
Title: Re: Tennessee: "let's kill a teen and then make her family pay for it"
Post by: Askold on March 28, 2017, 11:05:40 am
I believe this falls into the "let's make poor people pay for everything regardless of guilt while letting rich criminals get away without any compensation" ideology.
Title: Re: Tennessee: "let's kill a teen and then make her family pay for it"
Post by: Katsuro on March 28, 2017, 11:08:10 am
I believe this falls into the "let's make poor people pay for everything regardless of guilt while letting rich criminals get away without any compensation."

That's usually refereed to as "The American Dream" for short, right? :P
Title: Re: Tennessee: "let's kill a teen and then make her family pay for it"
Post by: Canadian Mojo on March 29, 2017, 03:25:34 am
Ignoring the heartlessness of this for a moment...in Tennessee you can be billed for something someone else did just because they're related to you? WTF?  Plus, things like that are paid for by taxes...which presumably the family pays so effectively they're being billed twice.

They actually billed the dead girl. In fairness, they also freely admit it was a big fuck-up to do that. My guess is that the accident didn't get flagged as fatal in the report so a repair bill was sent out or it was meant to go directly to her insurance company to deal with.

I wonder if the accident itself has the makings of a good negligence suit for the family.

Ok but even so,  the authorities billing accident victims at all??  Seems kinda messed up unless you can prove they did something criminal like drink driving or "driving without due care and attention" etc, in which case that's a court case and a fine, rather just simply being sent the bill for repairs.  I've never heard of anyone over here being billed for an accident (outside of a criminal prosecution resulting in a fine of course).  And I don't mean insurance excesses or anything like that either.  I've been in car accidents and never once thought "I hope the council doesn't make us pay for any of this".

If you ran over someones mailbox, who would pay for the damage? This is just an extension of that.
Title: Re: Tennessee: "let's kill a teen and then make her family pay for it"
Post by: Askold on March 29, 2017, 04:14:32 am
Ignoring the heartlessness of this for a moment...in Tennessee you can be billed for something someone else did just because they're related to you? WTF?  Plus, things like that are paid for by taxes...which presumably the family pays so effectively they're being billed twice.

They actually billed the dead girl. In fairness, they also freely admit it was a big fuck-up to do that. My guess is that the accident didn't get flagged as fatal in the report so a repair bill was sent out or it was meant to go directly to her insurance company to deal with.

I wonder if the accident itself has the makings of a good negligence suit for the family.

Ok but even so,  the authorities billing accident victims at all??  Seems kinda messed up unless you can prove they did something criminal like drink driving or "driving without due care and attention" etc, in which case that's a court case and a fine, rather just simply being sent the bill for repairs.  I've never heard of anyone over here being billed for an accident (outside of a criminal prosecution resulting in a fine of course).  And I don't mean insurance excesses or anything like that either.  I've been in car accidents and never once thought "I hope the council doesn't make us pay for any of this".

If you ran over someones mailbox, who would pay for the damage? This is just an extension of that.
..But, if you die doing something illegal do you have to pay a fine and can your family be billed for it?

The issue is not "should people pay for damages?" The issue is "should famiies pyforthe debt of a dead relative?"
Title: Re: Tennessee: "let's kill a teen and then make her family pay for it"
Post by: SCarpelan on March 29, 2017, 12:43:59 pm
If you ran over someones mailbox, who would pay for the damage? This is just an extension of that.

A mailbox is private property and its function is to receive mail. A guardrail is public property and its function is to suffer damage in a crash and protect lives; in other words a public service. Not directly comparable in my opinion.

What makes this case even more infuriating is that the guardrail was faulty and instead of diminishing the damage to the car and as an extension to the driver it penetrated the car causing her death.