More fallout from Rhode Island and North Carolina as the lawyers get involved in two interesting cases. The Rhode Island club fire sees everyone connected with the case, the state, the fire marshal office, the band, and the club owners jockeying for position in the court of public opinion. In North Carolina, where the young girl was given a transplanted set of heart and lungs of the wrong blood type, then a second set with the right specs, sees Duke University Hospital and the parents lining up with the briefcase set.
In an adversarial legal arena, like we have in Canada and the US, you prove that the other guy was totally at fault and damaged you irreparably, to the extent that the only way you (or your estate) can be made better is by the topical application of millions of tax-free dollars in real and punitive damages.
But I will argue, in both of these cases, that even if there are obvious bad guys who were cavalier with human life and just plain did not give a flying damn, that there should be a limitation on liability. In both cases, there is much good to come from a complete and open investigation of all sides in the tragedies. That means getting rid of the lawyers in both cases. Lawyers, although noble in many causes, are not there to find the problem and fix it. Lawyers are there to keep their fees coming.
As a hypothetical example, in Rhode Island. Let’s say the band didn’t get the OK of the club to fire off indoor pyro. Why did the backing go up so fast? Was it poorly spec’d? Did the fire marshal not see that it was flammable? Was the effects charge mislabelled, designed for a bigger venue but labeled with a smaller margin of safety? Do the laws regarding indoor effects need to be toughened, or just enforced better? Was the band clear with the club about the type and kind of effects? Were there too many people in the club? Was the club constructed of materials that were not appropriate to that kind of use? Should EXIT signs be improved? Are overhead sprinklers mandatory in public meeting places?
And on and on and on. We’ll never know, because the lawyers won’t let anyone answer those questions, as they could be construed as admissions of guilt.
In North Carolina, what went wrong that a set of internal organs of the wrong blood type wound up in Jessica? Is the paperwork good enough? Is the organ donation system flawed, or is this one of those one-in-a-million completely human mistakes? Do doctors trust too many people to do their part of the job and hope that everything else works?
I don’t know, but I do know that a prosecution-free investigation without any blame finding repercussions and lawyers, will find out what happened in both cases, leading to improvements in the overall system of how things get done.
Unfortunately, the cynic in me says that a no-fault investigation in either case is not in the best interests of the lawyers, therefore it will never happen.
The parallel here is aircraft crash investigation. The National Transportation Safety Board, the Transportation Safety Board and the Civil Aviation Authority in the US, Canada and Britain respectively do not seek to apportion blame. They seek to find why an event happened through rigorous scientific and evidentiary testing of all the potential reasons why and how an air crash can happen.
If it were possible in Rhode Island and North Carolina for an investigation into “why” rather than “who”, we would all be better served from these two tragedies.
Alas, the legal eagles are lining up to sue someone. Notice that nobody is talking about suing the club owners, the band, or the pyrotechnician simply because they don’t have any money. Rule One is never sue poor people. Let’s sue the State of Rhode Island, as they have money and we can all get our pay day. If it turns out that the fireworks company that made the charge is a big multinational, we’ll sue them too, as they have money. And if Johns Manville made the foam on the backing of the stage, or the ceiling tiles, or the paint, we’ll sue them too, as they have pockets full of cash.
Same in North Carolina, the family will probably not sue the hospital directly, but the hospital’s insurance carrier, who have deep pockets from all the premiums they collect and the company that made the bracelet that Jessica wore with her blood type because its Becton Dixon and they have deep pockets too as a major medical device manufacturer. But Bayer made the anti-rejection drugs to keep her transplanted organs from leaping out, and Bayer is big, so let’s include them in this madness.
Madness is the correct term. We want to know what went wrong and why and how to prevent it from happening again. That is what we, as a society want from these two tragedies. Answers and fixes. Not blame.
RoadDave 