Seattle Area Outage - Unions

[Thomas Rogers]

What do you mean "that's just it" and that "you don't agree whether or not they were negligent." That was never the point! You don't have to agree, and here is why:



Shek and I said (restating and paraphrasing):



"If we are to assume that the electricians dragged their feet in getting power restored (e.g. negligence) then the prolonged outtage was causal in people injuring/killing themselves."



The first part is our assumption...you can not agree with it sure, but if you do, then you have no further argument as to the assertion. If you want to discuss and debate the assertion then you have to take the given as an assumption. You don't debate assumptions when given; that's why they are given as assumptions. You can say, "sure, if they were negligent...", or "Even if they were negligent I don't agree..." (then make your case). But it's an assumption as given, so it's not open to debate. Did you guys ever take Geometry in HS? Do you know what a "given" is?



You are correct that if that assumption is true that it does not directly have anything to do with the actions of those burning charcoal, etc. However, PROXIMATE/LEGAL CAUSE (and causality) dictates that it need'nt. All that must be shown is that it "played a part, no matter how small".



And the part that it played was that the (assumed) negligence prolonged the outtage, thus creating the condition that allowed for the injurious action.



TJR

 

[Thomas Rogers]

Q, true that they had no control over what the "idiots" did, but the relationship is very clear.



IF the union members through negligence caused the outtage to be longer than expected, and if during that delayed period without power people did injurious things to overcome the condition created by the unions negligence, then you see the relationship and causality.



Do you see it now?



TJR

 

[Thomas Rogers]

Q, "No matter how long or how short"?



So, let's say the union decided to go on strike during the power outage, then because of the strike the outage lasted for weeks, allowing for significant personal injury, death, and economic loss. Are you then saying the city, and possibly the state wouldn't pursue a civil lawsuit against the union if that happened? I bet they would. Why, because the (in)actions of the union caused (causal) injury and financial loss, indirectly.



Regarding your statement: "You keep saying they were negligent"...NO, I said if we assumed negligence, I didn't say there was negligence. I and Shek said (paraphrasing, but consistent with countless other statements) "If we assume negligence that prolonged the outage." (THAT IS KEY, reread it please...commit to memory...it's the premise of the assertion).



Also, your bro-in-law agreed there is "no direct relationship". Again, no disagreement there. I have gone on record MANY TIMES saying "direct relationship" isn't the issue.



I never said there was a DIRECT relationship. All there has to be is a causal, indirect relationship, and that has been the argument all along. It was indirect and causal given the premise that "we assume negligence that prolonged the outage."



Do you see?



TJR

 

[Gavin Allan]

The inference of your position is that union electricians should be penalized for the deaths. I disagree with penalizing union electricians for the actions of an idiot killing his family. That is the subject being discussed.



All the other semantics and "wiggle language" you keep saying really doesn't matter here.

 

[Thomas Rogers]

Gavin, thanks for chiming in. Yes, my inference is that IF there were negligence there should be partial blame, and with that a penalty would make sense.



Here is a question for you just to make sure I understand your position:



Are you saying that if union members or their management willfully shirked their duty and showed negligence, and that negligence prolonged the outage, and during that prolonged outage people died (if even through their own fault), then you think that given those circumstances the union electricians or their management should NOT be penalized in any way?



I ask, because that's seems to be what you are saying given what I and Shek have posed as the premise.



*PLEASE* Answer "yes", or "no", please, because any different answer would be wiggling. (feel free to explain your answer, but only an answer of YES or NO is valid).



P.S. Gavin, please don't think I am a jerk because of the "yes or no" plea. The question is mine, it's a yes or no question, which I will take an explanation for. But if you don't agree with the question, then simply don't answer it and instead say such. The FUNDAMENTAL CONSTRUCTION of the question and all of those like it that have gone unanswered in a proper fashion before is purposeful and meant to evoke only a yes or a no answer, and not debate about the question itself (that's what a premise does).



It's the debate about my questions and what appears to be the inability (or unwillingness) of some to understand what a premise, an assumption, a logical assertion and causality are that has made this a 100 post thread (and my pig-headedness).



I have been critical of unions in the past, but this thread could be about anyone and I would make the same logical assertion.



TJR

 

[Rick Kent]

This is a great theoretical discussion of the premise "proximate cause" and "contributory negligence".



Is the person using a barbecue in his home for heat at fault and negligent for his and his families deaths? Yes.



Is a utility worker slacking on the job partially negligent? That question will be answered by a jury of his peers if and when a lawsuit is filed, all of your opinions not withstanding.



The law is interesting, especially in civil cases. 6 or 12, legally uneducated citizens who were not smart enough to dodge jury duty will decide your fate...



And for those that have served and are offended by "uneducated", I mean no legal training or no experience working in a field that is involved in the legal system. If you had legal training you would be struck for cause from the jury pool.

 

[Thomas Rogers]

Thanks FKent for understanding the premise.



I suspect you agree that the premise and theoretical argument are exactly the types of cases that are heard by a civil penalty juries, and that such cases should be heard and decided by a jury of peers.



TJR

 

[Rick Kent]

TJR,



I understand it because my job has me knee deep in civil litigation. A good example of this premise is the McDonald's coffee lawsuit.



An elderly lady purchases a cup of coffee. She is driving and attempting to drink it. She spills it in her lap and is burned. A jury held McDonald's negligent because the coffee was too hot. They did not assign complete fault to the woman for attempting to drive, open and drink coffee. To make matters worse a reasonably prudent person would be aware coffee is hot.



There are thousands of examples every year of the application of comparative negligence in our civil court system. All you have to do is prove by a preponderance of the evidence (more than 50%) that another contributed to your injuries or damages and that the result was reasonably foreseeable for a jury to award damages.



Going back to our original example, is a slacking utility worker negligent when a person who is cold uses a barbecue in his home for heat killed by CO poisoning? I would venture a guess that there is a lawyer who would take the case and a jury that will award damages if the fact of "slacking" can be proved.



P.S. I am not an attorney but I did sleep in a Holiday Inn Express last night.

 

[Tom Schindler]

Just in case anyone is wondering, I am at the airport in Las Vegas, Nevada and sitting having lunch with my wife. Gonna board the plane soon and fly home.



Glad to see this thread going on, I want to read it all, but I just don't have enough time.



Later everyone.





Tom



p.s. We had a great time here, but we are ready to go home.

 

[Thomas Rogers]

Q, Thanks for answering. You said:

Yes, that they should not be penalized for another's action.,

but then you said:

IF the unions were negligent AND people died AS A DIRECT RESULT of the extra time they wasted in their negligence, i.e..somoene froze to death, than yes, someone should answer to that because their so called negligence was a contributing factor.

That second quote sounds exactly what I was saying in my premise. The premise was that unions were negligent, the direct result being that it prolonged the outage, and that during that prolonged, extra time, people died due to their actions (whether those actions that they were too ignorant to leave a freezing house, or that they tried to stay warm by lighting a charcoal fire inside). The direct cause was the prolonged outage, and that created the cause which allowed people to harm themselves.



Or are you saying that if they froze to death it would be the partial blame of the electricians, but if they died from their own actions trying to avoid freezing it would not? If that's what you are saying, then how is someone allowing themselves to freeze to death any less their own fault than people poisoning themselves with CO?



It's like FKent said. McDonald's didn't spill the coffee, but McDonald's did serve a coffee that was too hot. Their coffee used to be scalding. It needn't be that hot and that's why they lost the settled the suit (and why they followed up by dropping the serving temp nationwide...and it's still hotter than heck).



TJR

 

[Thomas Rogers]

Caymen, Have a safe trip.



Catch up on the thread when you can. It really has nothing to do with unions, though. More about civil liability, causality and proximate/legal cause.



TJR

 

[Rick Kent]

I say it is time to leave this question up to the legal system. Everyone has their own opinion on who is at fault and to what degree.



The only opinion that will count in the end is that of a jury.

 

[Dale Carlson]

TJR,



This has been an entertaining thread even if it has gone astray, but I felt I should jump in...



A DIRECT cause of freezing to death is a lack of heat. Since you need energy to create heat, I can see making a case against the electric company if they (management and/or labor) made some poor or criminally negligent decisions and caused the power outage to linger.



A DIRECT cause of asphyxiation is lack of air. This situation was created when oxygen molecules in the air were replaced by carbon monoxide molecules. The cause of that was caused by the lighting of a barbecue grill inside an enclosed area. The cause of that was the homeowner ignoring the grill manufacturer's warnings about not using it in enclosed areas. And, the cause of that was a lingering power outage. Since the electric company did not cause the oxygen to be replaced by carbon monoxide, its relationship to this problem is INDIRECT, at best.

 

[Thomas Rogers]

Kefguy, that's why I never attempted to show a DIRECT cause.



Indirect is enough for the court of law to establish blame.



Whether a person dies from freezing to death because they were too inept to leave their house during a prolonged outage, or that same person poisoned themselves while trying to stay warm during that same prolonged outage, the same indirect cause is the same...the prolonged outage. I negligence caused the prolonged outage, then you know the rest.



I actually find the person that froze to death doing nothing to be more at fault for their situation than the person that at least tried to stay warm. There's this old saying: Do something, even if wrong. But that's really not the debate.



Indirect causality is what we are talking about.



TJR

 

[Gavin Allan]

re: Seattle Area Outage - Unions by TJR,12/31/2006 14:43 CT



Gavin, thanks for chiming in. Yes, my inference is that IF there were negligence there should be partial blame, and with that a penalty would make sense.



Here is a question for you just to make sure I understand your position:



Are you saying that if union members or their management willfully shirked their duty and showed negligence, and that negligence prolonged the outage, and during that prolonged outage people died (if even through their own fault), then you think that given those circumstances the union electricians or their management should NOT be penalized in any way?



I ask, because that's seems to be what you are saying given what I and Shek have posed as the premise.



*PLEASE* Answer "yes", or "no", please, because any different answer would be wiggling. (feel free to explain your answer, but only an answer of YES or NO is valid).



P.S. Gavin, please don't think I am a jerk because of the "yes or no" plea. The question is mine, it's a yes or no question, which I will take an explanation for. But if you don't agree with the question, then simply don't answer it and instead say such. The FUNDAMENTAL CONSTRUCTION of the question and all of those like it that have gone unanswered in a proper fashion before is purposeful and meant to evoke only a yes or a no answer, and not debate about the question itself (that's what a premise does).



It's the debate about my questions and what appears to be the inability (or unwillingness) of some to understand what a premise, an assumption, a logical assertion and causality are that has made this a 100 post thread (and my pig-headedness).



I have been critical of unions in the past, but this thread could be about anyone and I would make the same logical assertion.



TJR

Yes.

 

[Gavin Allan]

It's like FKent said. McDonald's didn't spill the coffee, but McDonald's did serve a coffee that was too hot. Their coffee used to be scalding. It needn't be that hot and that's why they lost the settled the suit (and why they followed up by dropping the serving temp nationwide...and it's still hotter than heck).



TJR

I HATE lukewarm coffee.

 

[Gavin Allan]

Yes or no. No other answer or explaination will be accepted.

 

[Thomas Rogers]

Q asks:

Let's say the power goes out and the family is getting cold. So they go out and drive around trying to find a hotel. While they're driving, a semi loses control over a patch of ice and the whole family is killed. Now is this the union's fault as well?

Good question Q. My answer: "NO".



And here is why...



If I were on a court deciding if the electricians (regardless whether they were unionized) had proximate/legal cause in the accident, then I would say "NO!" Yes, it is clear there appears to be causality involved, but it's not the cause, direct or indirect, and really causality was removed. The cause is slippery roads and driving unsafe for the conditions. The reason they were on the road was because of the outage; but there could have been countless other reasons they were on the road. When establishing guilt and blame you want to stick to those directly and indirectly responsibile, not those simply linked through causality. In your scenario road crews cleaning and salting the roads would be more likely to blame.



Furthermore, a person who poisons themselves in a house with CO has only one reason for their inappropriate actions and that is to stay warm. Their need to stay warm was directly caused by the electrician negligence (or so the premise states). Once the family in your scenario left their house, they removed themselves from the causality and conditions established by the electricians. Those that stayed, or couldn't leave, did not, thus the causal, indirect relationship still applied.



That would be my rationale if I were jury foreman.



That's part of the reason for the uproar over responsibility in New Orleans. Many people asked/said: "Why didn't these people just leave?" Short answer: "Many simply couldn't!"



TJR

 

[Thomas Rogers]

Q, I can't argue with your points about why each family was in the pridicament they were in...the power outtage.



But death of the family that died in a car accident was much more related to their actions and the road conditions then the power outage. I still say that once they left the house, they removed themselves from the condition established by the negligence. Maybe the left their house due to the outage, stopped at an ATM and were mugged and killed by robbers. Same root cause for leaving, but much more fault to the robbers then.



The ONLY fault you have in the original case is the negligence of the electricians and the poor actions of the people...nothing in between.



Remember, we are talking about partial blame too...no one is trying to put this ALL on the electricians.



TJR

 

[Thomas Rogers]

Gavin,



I find it interesting that you said YES.



Again, this means that you feel that no agency that is responsible for safeguarding, protecting, or delivering a service should be held accountable when they are negligent in their duties and people subsequently suffer.



So I guess in this case:



IF the electricians were drinking beer on the job, working two hours of an 8 hour day, spending the rest of the time leaning on a shovel or in a strip club, and their management knew about such abuses and did nothing...I guess you are saying if ALL OF THAT went on, and that caused an outage to be much longer than it should, and during the delayed outtage senior citizens froze to death in a nursing home, or otherwise unable people died because they couldn't take care of themselves, that ALL IS OKAY and the power company and those negligent should just go about their business as usual.



Sure, what I propose is an absurd example, but it is an example of the general case I asked, and you said that there should be not assumed accountability/penalty for those negligent.



I just don't see it. You once said things aren't black and white, yet your answer of YES says otherwise.



TJR