Attorney (and wannabe) Advice Sought - Negligence

[jettio]

Originally Posted by Yosef_Malkovitch

Jettio-

I agree that theft might be foreseeable, but is this kind of theft reasonably foreseeable? If the thieves had simply cut his lock, then it definitely would have been foreseeable. But renting another unit several spaces down and burrowing through the walls would seem, to me, not to be foreseeable.

I remember that in tort law the type of harm must be foreseeable (you can't sue a construction company for negligence if their mis-placed barrels piss off a driver who then attacks you b/c it wasn't foreseeable that that specific type of harm would result) but I don't know that much about situations like this.

On second thought, since you've just done two cases like this, I'll shut up. I'm sure a "real" lawyer knows more than a 3L, anyways.

Now that I consider it, this would be more analogous to the flaming rat case anyways, which said that the means of harm is irrelevant as long as the type of harm is what should have been expected. Which means that, here, theft should have been expected and it's irrelevant exactly *how* the theft occurred.

I think it would be foreseeable if you find jurors or a judge who have seen Ocean's Eleven, its sequel, or any of those jewel or art-heist films.

That sh*t happens all the time.

Could just depend on the facts. But people hire storage facilities because they have valuable stuff and not enough room at home to keep it.