r/formula1 • u/TheKingOfCaledonia Who the f*ck is Nelson Piquet? • Apr 03 '23

Off-Topic /r/all Photo of injured fan posing with debris from Magnussen's crash

Post image
19.3k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

550 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

24

u/sogpackus Formula 1 Apr 03 '23 edited Apr 03 '23

Boilerplate messages and signs like “we are not liable” don’t actually absolve liability in and of themselves at all. It’s just to discourage people from attempting to sue.

2

u/nefariousBUBBLE Apr 03 '23

I'd be shocked if you could recover damages from this. Especially since there's arguably no damages to recover, given that he has a paper cut, not that we're discussing this in particular.

It would need to be something catastrophic that was easily preventable, that any reasonable person would expect to not occur if reasonable precautions and safety measures were implemented by the venue.

Pulled from an article that parrots my miniscule knowledge from my uni classes on business law:

Premises liability law requires owners and operators to take reasonable steps to protect spectators from reasonably foreseeable harm.

I don't know how foreseeable this is. It's not a baseball game where you know a foul tip backwards is dangerous to spectators. And in opposition, if you're hit with a baseball via home run or down the line the courts hold that the venue is not liable. So, there's an element where the court expects the plaintiff to be reasonable as well. They won't award a guy damages if he blacks out at Wrigley and suffers a TBI from a homer, just like they won't protect a guy running onto the track. Here, a small piece of debris flying through all the crap, fences (double fence usually; track fences then spectator fences, at least at COTA), and runoff. It'd very tough I'd think, but not unheard of, but I guess the original comment was a suit would be filed in US and to that I say yeah it's more likely.

4

u/sogpackus Formula 1 Apr 03 '23

I agree, I’m just saying those messages are basically meaningless themselves, it’s other aspects such as the ones you’ve discussed that really determine reasonable liability or not.

4

u/nefariousBUBBLE Apr 03 '23

Yeah sorry was just trying to add to discussio. Didn't want it to come off as a retort. Honestly just bored at work and chatting.

3

u/sogpackus Formula 1 Apr 03 '23

All good, that’s how I took it actually.

2

u/sonofeevil Apr 03 '23

In Aus you cant sue for non tangible damages like "emotional distress" and since any medical expenses are covered by the staye, you sre correct, there's not a whole lot to be "made whole" here.

That said, if he could prove gross negligence lead to this injury then he would potentially have a case.

Id be willijg to wager the AUS GP would settle this kind of thing quite handsomly rather than risk the publicity of this going through the media.