If a 12 year old child uses his mother&#39;s car without her consent A 12 year old child uses his parent's car without her consent. He loses control over the steering wheel and hits his twin brother, which causes his brother's death. In this case, who is held responsible? Can the son be sued?
Depending on the country (not mentioned), the mother may be at fault for not keeping the car out of the hands of her son, but on the other hand, it seems quite impossible to 100% prevent a determined 12 year old from getting hold of your car keys. That would likely be up to a judge to decide whether and how much she is at fault. And also depending on the country, the 12 year old will be held more or less responsible for his actions, due to his age. Depends on the laws, and may depend on the judge deciding whether a normal 12 year old, or whether this particular 12 year old, should know that him driving a car is illegal and highly dangerous and possibility of someone dying was foreseeable.
Theft in Oregon (and elsewhere, substantially the same) is defined statutorily: A person commits theft when, with intent to deprive another of property or to appropriate property to the person or to a third person, the person: (1) Takes, appropriates, obtains or withholds such property from an owner thereof... The car is James' property and it is not John's, even though James is dead. There is a legal process by which at some point in the future the car could become John's, but criminal acts are defined in terms of what is the case at the time of the act, not what might happen in the future. James' intent as expressed in the will notwithstanding, it is not guaranteed that John will become the car owner. So until John is actually the owner of the car, John is taking the property of another, and this is theft.
Under the doctrine of &quot;respondeat superior&quot;, can an employer in Michigan be legally liable if an (intoxicated) non-salary employee hits and kills a person on their way to work? Probably not. For most purposes, under principles originally established for minimum wage laws under the Portal to Portal Act, you are not at work and acting within the scope of your employment when you leave home to go to work (i.e. when you are commuting) or when you leave work to go home at the end of the day. Would the employer's legal responsibility change if the vehicle was owned by the company? Not on a respondeat superior theory. The employee still isn't acting within the scope of employment. But, Michigan does impose statutory liability upon vehicle owners which is vicarious liability even though it isn't respondeat superior liability, under a theory similar to (but broader than in some respects since it applies to non-family too, and narrower than in other respects since it is limited to vehicle owners) the common law family car doctrine. Specifically, Michigan Vehicle Code § 401(1) states (the balance of the section pertains to leased vehicles): This section shall not be construed to limit the right of a person to bring a civil action for damages for injuries to either person or property resulting from a violation of this act by the owner or operator of a motor vehicle or his or her agent or servant. The owner of a motor vehicle is liable for an injury caused by the negligent operation of the motor vehicle whether the negligence consists of a violation of a statute of this state or the ordinary care standard required by common law. The owner is not liable unless the motor vehicle is being driven with his or her express or implied consent or knowledge. It is presumed that the motor vehicle is being driven with the knowledge and consent of the owner if it is driven at the time of the injury by his or her spouse, father, mother, brother, sister, son, daughter, or other immediate member of the family. So, unless the employee had a company car without the express or implied consent or knowledge of the employer, the company is responsible for harm caused by negligence. There might be an argument that criminal activity (driving while intoxicated) which was intentional or reckless, is beyond what the employer gave express or implied consent to do and was not done with employer knowledge (I haven't reviewed the case law to examine that theory), in the same way that the employer would probably not have liability if the employee, while sober, intentionally murdered his ex-wife by driving over her with the company car. But, at first blush, it looks like the employer would be on the hook if it was a company car, since drunk driving is a traffic statute that was violated for which the negligence per se liability referred to in the statute would apply. The fact pattern of the question is notable because it catches a case where there is statutory liability in Michigan, despite the fact that neither the family car doctrine, not respondeat superior, nor a negligent entrustment theory would impose liability on employer at common law. (There are negligent entrustment cases at common law in Colorado and elsewhere where negligent entrustment liability is imposed when an employer allows a drunk employee to leave work in a company car that the employer could have forbidden the employee to use because the employee was drunk.)
There are only two rules I am aware of that apply to rear-end collisions on a roadway (in which all vehicles are properly headed in the same direction): The first vehicle that hits another in the rear is at fault for the collision, and any collateral collisions. The preceding rule is always true unless there is evidence that the vehicle that was struck did something reckless or intentional to cause the collision. For example, "cutting" in front of a truck and decelerating unnecessarily and faster than the truck can brake. (Before dashcams became widespread this was a common tactic of fraudsters, who would subsequently sue the "rear-ender's" insurance company for "whiplash" injuries.) You seem to be asking whether there is a law or rule against coming to a stop too close to a vehicle in front. Tailgating is generally illegal, but I have never heard of the concept being applied to vehicles that are not moving. (Clarification on your question: "Stop far enough behind the car in front of you so that you can see the bottom of their back tires" is a safety heuristic that allows you to pull around the vehicle in an emergency without shifting into reverse. It's a "rule" of defensive driving, but I have never heard it written into law.)
The vehicle occupying the lane has right of way i.e. if you merge and cause a collision, you are liable. The fact that the other driver was in breach of the road rules as well as you is immaterial. If you rephrased the question to be "A vehicle behind you in that lane is exceeding the speed limit - can I exceed the speed limit too?" you would see why. "Because they were breaking the law I should be allowed to" is not a defence that has any prospect of being successful. The law says you must give way when merging, so give way when merging.
Your kid is not in trouble; he's a minor. You're in trouble. A criminal case for the charges a prosecutor would bring, i.e. destruction of property (the data) or for a relevant cyber or computer crime (malware, etc.), and/or a civil case for damages due to the destruction of the data would both hinge on one point: the concept of intent. See intent - Wex Legal Information Institute and Civil Law vs. Criminal Law: The Differences | Rasmussen College. Did you knowingly intend to cause damage or data loss with the structure of the name? It's pretty clear you did. The structure of a name that can invoke an SQL command is not in any sense a standard name in spelling or format or punctuation. So how would you convince the jury or judge that you had no intent when you named your kid? The possible poor design of a data system that didn't sanitize inputs is no defense. Saying the door was unlocked so I assume the homeowners didn't care if I trashed their house will get you laughed into jail or on the hook for a stiff civil judgement.
This is a very common situation, and -- assuming this is happening in the United States -- it is pretty clear that Attorney is behaving exactly as he should under the Rules of Professional Conduct. Mother is the &quot;technical&quot; client and the &quot;real&quot; client. Son is not a client in any sense; he is merely a person paying the bills. If Mother wants to involve Son, she can do that on her own, but Attorney is prohibited from disclosing his privileged communications with Mother and from substituting Son's preferences/judgments for those of his client. If Son does not like what the lawyer is doing, he can encourage Mother to direct Attorney to change course, or Son can inform Attorney that he will stop paying for Attorney's services.
You always run some legal risk when you drive. As long as you are insured (you have a card in your hand) and you have permission to drive the car, it does not matter who owns the car. There is a difference between the legal minimum insurance coverage and actually adequate coverage, and since you are not getting separate insurance where control the insurance levels, you theoretically run some liability risk if you have an accident and the coverage is less than the damages (insurance doesn't mean that the other guy can't take you to court for the rest of the amount). There is also a risk that the housemate will do something crazy like cancel the insurance coverage for you, or report the car stolen, so you have to decide how worried you are about that possibility.