She Done

I thought I would comment on some news stories I read recently that I found interesting. First, did you all see the story about the chick who was mauled by a chimpanzee? One of the things we learned in torts was strict liability for non-domesticated animals. Basically, the chick who owned the chimp is pretty much completely toast if the woman who was mauled sues her.

I also was intrigued by the headline of the woman who swam the Atlantic Ocean and gave it a click. As I read the story, something did not quite make sense to me at the time. I had heard of people swimming the English Channel, but the entire Atlantic? Although the story was right in front of me, for some reason, I just didn't believe it.

A day or so later, more details were released about this woman's feat. First, she started on an island off the coast of Africa which was a roughly 500 mile head start on her journey. Damning, but still an impressive overall feat. Then we were told that if you examined the time which the woman claimed to have made the journey by the total distance she would have needed to swim, that someone swimming at Michael Phelps' fastest time would not have been able to cover that distance swimming 24 hours per day without stop. Basically, the whole story was completely bogus. Instead, the woman swam periodically as her sailboat sailed west and instead of swimming like 2,500 miles or so from Africa, she actually swam about 200-250 miles total. This is an impressive feat worthy of praise, but it does not constitute swimming across the Atlantic by a long shot.

The final story I saw of some legal significance involved a man who recently won an award after being injured by a subway train in New York. The man was drunk and fell onto a subway track where one of his legs was severed. It sounds like the guy's lawyer invoked the last clear chance doctrine of negligence, and was able to successfully plead his case. The plaintiff was found to be 33% comparatively negligent, and his award was reduced by this amount. Lee v. Chicago Transit Authority anyone?