Archive for category: General Interest

            Several past articles have discussed the use and importance of streets and highways in accessing real estate.  It’s clear that most of the time streets and roads are used for the purpose of actually going somewhere to a destination point, or for the purpose of getting to a point on the map.

However, occasionally streets and roads are used for other purposes.  Sometimes these “other uses” can end up in court.

Several years ago, a California case addressed one of these alternate uses for streets.  This case involved a movie stunt that didn’t turn out as expected.  In that case, the streets weren’t used to actually go somewhere.  Instead, they were used for filming.  The case went to trial, and then to an appeal.  In its opinion, the court of appeal wrote the following.

“Motion pictures remain one of the premier forms of entertainment in today’s world.  Movies frequently entertain through flights of fantastic adventure, heavily laden with excitement and danger.  Motion picture producers and directors are often able to achieve such results by employing tricks of the trade (e.g., animation, trick photography, special effects, and clever splicing and editing). Some producers and directors, on the other hand, resort to photographing adventuresome activities which are nearly as dangerous as they appear on screen and which sometimes imperil those in front of and behind the camera.”

“The motion picture industry has long employed seemingly fearless and hardy stuntpersons to perform activities too hazardous for professional actors to undertake.  Frequently, these stuntpersons achieve spectacular results without injury.  Other times, as here, adventure becomes misadventure.”

It seems that a stuntwoman, who was also a ski instructor and aspiring actress, was hired to do stunt work in the filming of “Cannonball Run.” This stuntwoman was to be a passenger in a 1962 Aston-Martin sports car, which itself was a double for another Aston-Martin sports car used elsewhere in the film. Filming began in Los Angeles, then moved to Florida and Georgia, and then to Las Vegas.  The Aston-Martin that was used in the film was a vintage car, and had no seat belts.  (The other Aston-Martin car, for which the stunt car was a double, is referred to in the Court’s opinion as the “original James Bond car” which was used in filming “James Bond” movies, and was equipped with special features such as machine guns – along with seat belts).

When the stunt car was delivered to the set, it was found to have defective steering, bald tires, and a malfunctioning clutch.  It wouldn’t go more than eight miles an hour.  It was repaired – but no seat belts were installed.

In the stunt, the Aston-Martin was driven by a stunt car driver southbound on a highway where it encountered five northbound vehicles also being driven by stunt drivers.  There were two takes made of the stunt.  In the first take, the Aston-Martin cut across the front of opposing traffic and onto the opposite shoulder, passed the oncoming cars, and then returned to the highway.  The camera operators used their lenses to make it look like the vehicles were passing closer together than they actually were.  This stunt went smoothly, and the stuntwoman thought the car performed perfectly.

After the first take, the director told the stunt drivers to pick up the pace and drive faster.  The director wanted the Aston-Martin to weave in and out of the oncoming cars in serpentine fashion.  Nobody told the passenger stuntwoman that the second “take” was to be different than the first.  Unfortunately, during the second take the Aston-Martin collided with a Ford van, and both the driver and the stuntwoman were hospitalized, with the stuntwoman suffering catastrophic injuries.

The stuntwoman sued for her injuries because there were no seat belts in the car, and at trial her expert testified that if she had worn a lap-shoulder seatbelt, she would at most have suffered fractured ribs.  The evidence showed that seat belts were available on the movie set and could have been installed in 20 minutes.

At trial, the jury awarded the stuntwoman damages of seven million dollars, but found her partially at fault in the amount of 35%.  The trial judge therefore reduced her award by 35%, and due to settlements previously received from other parties which served as an offset, the trial judge entered an award in favor of the stuntwoman of $0.00.  The Court of Appeal affirmed this judgment. The case is reported as Von Beltz v. Stuntman, Inc. (1989) 207 Cal. App. 3d 1467.

Issues of negligence, liability, offsets, and personal injuries involve complex issues of fact and law.  Persons considering such questions or issues should seek the advice of competent legal counsel.

          “A treasure is a thing hidden or buried in the earth, . . . which no one can prove his property, and which is discovered by chance.”

This definition of “Treasure” is quoted from the laws of the State of Louisiana. The definition has its origins in the Napoleonic code upon which Louisiana law is based. Louisiana law also provides that “The ownership of a treasure belongs to the person who finds it.”

I remember as a young boy running across the book Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson.  This book describes pirates, mutinies, sailing ships, ocean journeys and buried treasure.  Thoughts of buried treasure usually call up movies like Pirates of the Caribbean.  But treasure really sometimes does exist, and sometimes in the most unlikely places.

Lucian Sebastian Baron was a wealthy resident of Lousiana who died in 1928.  At the time of his death, he was being taken care of by his daughter Emily.  After her father’s death, Emily moved in with her brother at a home near New Orleans, and she bought a mattress.  When the family moved, Emily took the mattress with her.

Emily eventually built a separate home for herself next to her brother’s home.  She had customary locks on the doors on her home, and a special lock on the door of her bedroom.

Emily seldom left her home. She allowed nobody to enter her bedroom unless she was present.  She ordered her clothes by catalog.  By the time of her death at age 82 in 1957, she was completely blind. At the time of her death, she left no will.

Emily’s mattress remained locked up in her room for a year after she died.

Emily’s heirs inherited all of her property.  They sold her mattress for $2.50.  The mattress was taken to a mattress works where it was dismantled. The interior cotton was processed through a chopping machine.  The cotton was then placed into another box where air was blasted through it.  When all of the air stopped blowing, there was $22,500 in gold certificates that had been stored in the mattress.  That’s a fair amount of money in 1957.

Emily’s heirs claimed that the gold certificates were “lost property” and that as Emily’s heirs they were entitled to keep the certificates.  The mattress buyers, however, claimed that they had paid good money for the mattress and everything in it, so the certificates belonged to them.  The mattress buyers also claimed that the gold certificates were “in fact a treasure trove, and that, since the treasure was found in their property, it belonged to them.”  This case is reported at United States v. Peter (1959) 178 F. Supp. 854.

You be the judge.  Who wins?  The heirs of the wealthy 82-year-old woman who lives alone and stuffs her mattress with money?  Or the fortunate purchasers of the mattress who find a treasure trove in their mattress?

After discussing both English Law and the Napoleonic Code on the subject of treasure, the Court made short work of the arguments by the mattress purchasers. The court awarded the money to Emily’s heirs.  If the true owners of the money couldn’t be found, then the mattress purchasers would have made a good claim to the money.  But since the money clearly belonged to Emily, her heirs were entitled to it.

So much for buried treasure.  Any modern-day Long John Silvers should remember that if they find a treasure chest, the owner has the right to the treasure.  And if the true owner files a lawsuit for return of the treasure, then the successful treasure hunter will probably just be out of luck.

There’s a lot of law that goes on “below the radar.”

A lot of law goes on “behind the scenes” where it’s completely invisible to the general public.  It’s just never thought about – and that’s because everything seems to work seamlessly.  The only time most people ever think about such law is where there’s a problem.

Take, for example, the circus.  No, really, the circus.  Last summer  my grandson came to visit – and out by Dublin, along Interstate 580, we saw a big, striped tent.  It had big blue and gold stripes.  I don’t remember seeing much of a sign.  But how much sign do you need?  A big-top striped tent of those proportions usually only means one things – a circus.

So – we did what doting grandparents do. We bought tickets.

It was a great day.  Where else can you see a grown man balance a full-sized shopping cart on his chin?  And where else can you see a couple of people ride full size motorcycles around a caged globe – without hitting each other while doing full vertical and horizontal loops at the same time?  There were skilled trapeze artists, a circus master – the whole nine yards.

But I’ll bet most of the circus-goers didn’t stop to think about all of the legal arrangements involved in that event.  For example, the big-top circus tent didn’t just get setup in the middle of nowhere.  It had to be setup on land that belonged to someone.  So that means the circus had to get some kind of permissions – and probably had to pay some kind of a fee – in order to be able to set up their tent on vacant land next to the freeway.  Such an arrangement has all of the makings of a contract for the use of real property – and we usually call this a lease.  Even though the circus was only there for a short period of time, all of the necessary legal arrangements would most likely have to be made in advance, including leases and other legal arrangements.

Not every circus sets up under the big top.  It seems like a lot of circus performances these days take place indoors – like at big indoor arenas.  Same thing – most of these events may well be backed up by a lot of contracts.  Such contracts might take into account such things as the type of use that is to be made of any particular facility, and the times and dates when it will be available.  And lots of contracts contain terms that address things like potential accidents, incidents, or unforeseen circumstances.  Such contracts can spell out who’s going to assume the risk of certain kinds of accidents or loss.  Among other things, such contracts can provide for who’s going to pay for loss, injury, or damage from an event.

And don’t think it doesn’t happen.  A circus – or any other event – can experience an unforeseen event, where things might not go according to plan.  Here’s an example.

It seems that in 1958, the “Great Danbury State Fair, Inc.” was apparently hosting a fair. (The Wikipedia article on Danbury Fair indicates that this fair started in 1821 and that beginning in 1869 it ran for 10 days every October until 1981, when it closed).  There was apparently an incident of sorts that resulted in a lawsuit.  The reported opinion doesn’t give many details, but it does indicate that someone was injured and that the Great Danbury State Fair, Inc. was one of two named defendants (the other named defendant was “Steele’s Frontier Days”).

The court’s opinion is very short – it is only 6 paragraphs long (and two of those paragraphs are only 1 sentence long).  The court’s opinion refers to an “allegedly offending elephant” and notes that the complaint filed by the injured person describes the elephant as “an animal ferae nature, ” which in Latin means “wild animal.” No other details are given in the court’s opinion.

Reading between the lines, it seems clear that someone was injured at the Great Danbury State Fair, and that this person claimed that an elephant was the cause of the injury, and that they believed that Steele’s Frontier Days and the Great Danbury State Fair were responsible.  The case is reported as Becker v. Steele (1958) 139 A.2d 820.

(The court’s opinion is very brief – it doesn’t say what the accident was, or how it happened, or whether or not anybody was found liable.  It only indicates that an injury occurred, and that the injured person claimed that the injury was caused by an elephant.)

An elephant, no doubt, should be given a great deal of respect, and should also be given a wide berth, and only skilled and knowledgeable persons should handle an elephant.  But when something with an elephant goes wrong, then some of the law that frequently operates “below the radar” may be called upon to sort out the consequences.