"Nick" wrote in message
news:6deti8F28qu5U1@mid.individual.net...
> For argument sake if you thought it appropriate that people should be
> insured from non negligent accidental damage by a truck why do you think
> it would be better to target secondary sources such as the fridge maker
> rather than just add it to the trucks current insurance? Why would you
> even consider such a stupid idea?
It might encourage the fridge designer to design a fridge which didn't
require a truck to deliver it, if there was a significant risk which
sufficiently inflated the cost of the insurance. But the bottom line is that
I'm *not* considering such a stupid idea. I'm showing that this is the
inherent consequence of a far MORE stupid idea - the concept of introducing
non-negligent liability.
A simple thought experiment will demonstrate the point. A truck driver has a
cardiac arrest whilst driving a truck, causing the truck to veer off the
road and kill six people. On investigation it is discovered that said driver
had been given a full medical examination three weeks earlier (for a life
insurance application - not because he had any symptoms), and that the
subsequent test results showed an iminant danger of a heart attack, but the
doctor had forgotten to pass this information obn to anyone so the driver
was completely unaware of it. In this situation it is clear that the driver
bears no responsibility whatsoever for the deaths, and that the doctor's
neglect renders him pretty well solely responsible (possibly criminally so,
but let's ignore that for now) for the accident.
Now run the same scenario but this time the driver is single with no
dependants, so he doesn't apply for any life insurance and doesn't get the
medical exam. In your view this man is responsible for the accident, but why
is he any more responsible than the identical man who had applied for life
insurance?
I put it to you that the only driver behind your proposal is the view that
as the insurance companies are "rich" we can design laws to ensure they pay
for everything simply because they can "afford" to do so. This is
economically unsound and logically barking (to use the technical term).
There are very good reasons why English common law evolved the principle
that there is no liability without negligence.
PDR
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