The gun maker didn’t pull the trigger and the beer maker didn’t pour it into your mouth and hand you the keys to your own car, and Apple didn’t attach these AirTags to these two women: but someone did, and that’s who is responsible.
I agree that the only person who should be prosecuted criminally in these cases is the one who committed the felonies, but the question is about whether people should have civil liability. Those are two very different legal standards, and the bar for civil liability is a lot lower. It doesn't really seem like people are discussing this aspect at all in this thread (not just you, but this seemed like a relevant place to bring up the point). I don't feel like I have a strong enough grasp of the legal issues at hand to have a strong opinion about whether there should be civil liability in these cases, but I'm not at all convinced that "someone else is more responsible" is a good counterargument, since there's no reason that multiple parties could be liable.
You need the case specifics to usefully argue for or against civil liability. The standard of proof might be lower but that must makes it more messy. Apple’s taken some measures to prevent themselves from being liable. Were they enough? Is it possible to sell this kind of product and do enough to insulate themselves without getting some laws changed? Who knows. Maybe this Court will weigh in on that, assuming Apple doesn’t settle to make this go away. There’s a ceiling on the useful discussion we can have about civil liability in an HN thread about an ongoing case about this specific product.
The same is true with guns and beers: you need facts of the case that are being argued, not just a couple of off-the-cuff whatabouts.
That seems pretty reasonable. It doesn't make it less strange that people are so confidently asserting that there's no possible reasonable basis for a lawsuit though.
I think there are cases where manufacturers blatantly disregard opportunities for misuse that should fall upon them (Tesla's FSD releases with Elon's "wink wink don't take your hands off the wheel" come to mind). I just don't think this is one of them.
I would still hold the driver responsible in that case. The driver is licensed, they received the warnings, and it explicitly isn’t FSD (if you correct me and tell me that they’ve re-marketed the existing driver assist feature set as FSD I’ll probably believe you, just give me a link, but as far as I know they haven’t crossed that threshold).
Turning it into a marketing name instead of a marketing spin probably explains how they got away with that preorder nonsense too. I’ll still say the licensed driver in the seat is responsible, but if someone wanted to ream Tesla in court over this, I wouldn’t be opposed.
Also early on Elon Musk would frequently tweet people doing stupid illegal things in their Teslas (e.g. fooling the sensors, jumping into the backseat from the drivers seat and pretending they’re in a taxi) and then say “obviously you shouldn’t do this but isn’t it cool that you can!”
He’d also make misleading claims about “FSD” being safer than human drivers (it isn’t, but FSD gets disabled in tricky situations, so he could lie with statistics).
Mentioned in another comment, but I suspect the lawsuit will focus on either negligence in product safety features, or marketing claims about protection against this type of use not working as claimed.
I guess following your analogies, maybe a "fingerprint lock gun" that unlocks with anyone's fingerprint, despite claims that it doesn't. Or beer marketed as 4% alcohol content that actually is 8%.
And, again, not saying that's the case here. But I suspect that's what the plaintiff would attempt to prove, some negligence of due diligence or false claims.
No I don't, unless they specifically marketed their products to those perpetrators. A drive in bar would encourage drunk driving, selling beer to the general population puts the decision of driving drunk in the hands of the consumer.
I'm not American, we have completely different gun laws and gun culture here, so it's difficult for me to relate. We had one school killing a few years ago where the attacker used a sword, I don't think the sword manufacturer was ever blamed for that in any way.
I completely agree. I just posted that comment because it seems like there's this weird idea that certain companies get passes on responsibility vs others. Wanted to see what people thought about these use cases and different categories.
Do you believe beer makers should be sued by victims of drunk driving crashes?
Just trying to see where we draw the line to be honest.