If the Dam Breaks Open Many Years Too Soon
It's practice problems like the following one that make studying for the bar exam tolerable.
(Feel free to submit your own answers in the comments.)
(Feel free to submit your own answers in the comments.)
A law enforcement officer was transporting a prisoner on a plane to testify in a criminal case. Unknown to those on the plane, an assassin hired to kill the prisoner had bribed an airport baggage handler to sneak a timed-release crate of poisonous snakes into the cargo hold of the plane.
Once the crate was triggered to open, the snakes were able to slither into the passenger compartment through gaps in the conduits between the cargo hold and the passenger compartment. In the ensuing panic caused by the snakes, the officer was struck in the head by a fire extinguisher that another passenger threw at a snake, and suffered a severe concussion.
The officer filed suit against numerous parties, including the person who designed the conduit system on that type of plane. At trial, evidence established that the design for the conduit system that he used had been rejected in the industry because of the danger of pressure loss between the cargo hold and the passenger compartment. An industry-approved design that the designer could have used would have kept the snakes from getting into the passenger compartment of the plane.
As between the officer and the designer, which party is likely to prevail?
A) The officer, because the designer is strictly liable for designing the conduit system of the plane.
B) The officer, because of the high degree of care owed to passengers of a common carrier.
C) The designer, because the assassin's actions were an unforeseeable intervening force.
D) The designer, because the officer was injured by another passenger rather than a snake.
Any requests for assistance should be directed to the man pictured below:
Labels: Bar Exam, Samuel L. Jackson, Snakes on a Plane, Torts
posted by Justin @ 6/23/2009 08:52:00 PM
8 comments
8 Comments:
is it "D"?
by the way, are you freaking kidding me that this was an actual question? i'm not one of the 25 people that saw "snakes on a plane", but from the commercials and little publicity i saw about it, i feel as though the question writer was also one of the folks that helped develop the crappy plot for Sammy's blockbuster cult flop... clearly you thought the same thing.
Brain Damage - Pink Floyd
-Middleton
E) Samuel L Jackson
I love this movie. I own this movie. I watch this movie with director/producer commentary.
I haven't seen the movie, but I heard the song 1,000,000,000,000 times. I wondered about a connection.
By the way, the designer wins in Maryland because they still recognize contributory negligence and assumption of risk as absolute bars to liability.
Amanda,
I'm pretty sure you're onto something in making the connection between a Barbri question writer and a mediocre Hollywood screenwriter.
Joey,
Does the director/producer commentary also include commentary from Samuel L. Jackson saying things like, "Well, I was behind on the mortgage and (insert name of producer here) called my agent, and there are just some times where you do what you have to do."
Jeremy,
What year is it in Maryland? 1962?
Also, are you hinting at something we might like to call "The Dark Side of Snakes on a Plane"? Cue up the Floyd, cue up the movie, and let the magic happen.
This comment has been removed by the author.
The correct answer is C in comparative fault jurisdictions.
Presumably the aircraft was passed as "airworthy" by the FAA so there was nothing wrong with the conduit system.
And the answer is E the passenger for being so stupid as to throw a fire extinguisher at a snake.
Oh yes -- what has this got to do with Pink Floyd?
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