Woman who OD'd sues drug dealer
After taking some crystal meth, Sandra Bergen, 23, of Saskatchewan, Canada, had a heart attack and ended up in a coma that lasted nearly two weeks. So she sued her drug dealer. The dealer, Clinton Davey, wouldn't rat out his connection, so the judge ruled in Bergen's favor. She asked for $50,000 in damages and is now waiting for the judge to determine who much she'll get. From the BBC News:
"I sued him for negligence... for selling me drugs and getting me hooked when I was vulnerable," Ms Bergen told the French news agency AFP...Link
Ms Bergen and Mr Davey were friends from childhood.
In her statement of claim, she said he "knew the drug was highly addictive" and that his dealing was not only "for the purpose of making money but was also for the purpose of intentionally inflicting physical and mental suffering" on her.
the latest
latest episodes
In the US and A, illegal contracts are not enforceable.
What's up, eh?
Sorry. I have no sympathy.
buy the ticket, take the ride. If you can't handle a substance, don't do the substance. Thats why i stick to a handful of minor league narcotics and psychoactives.
and a new industry is born.
on a semi-related note, all Canadians must be deeply, deeply shamed today. Their government has sold Marc Emery.
To paraphrase Dr McCoy:
"How can you get a legal ruling on a damned illegal thing (drug sale/usage)?"
Canucks, WTF?
Yeah, can't use the legal system for recourse on an illegal trade.
It does open the question; that if and when recreational drugs are legalized, what lawsuits might arise?
Yes, illegal contracts are unenforceable in Canada as well. But she's not suing in contract, she's suing in tort. Different things.
Legality is a common law requirement for contacts, so it applies in Canada for the same reason it applies in the U.S.
However, courts have a long history of finding duties of care (which have nothing to do with contract law) even when crimes are involved. For example, you may have a duty of care to trespassers and burglars under common law not to expose them to undue hazards by the simple act of illegally entering your home or property. So if a burglar falls down your stairs you may be liable for damages (although if your shoot the burglar and kill them, you may not be... the law, like all human things, is not entirely consistent.)
I haven't read the transcript, and I am not a lawyer, so this is all uninformed speculation, but it would be consistent with past history for the court to have found that the drug dealer had a duty of care in this case.
#6: What's the difference?
All drugs should be legal.
That said, this phenomenon will be short lived. Since government cowardice will keep drugs illegal, the profit motive will remain. Hence a few low level dealers might be hauled into court and relieved of their assets,but the very first time this moves up the supply chain to harm the interests of a high level dealer, the plaintiff will die.
You know, if this catches on, it might be the first effective method of getting the really dangerous stuff off the street. No, I'm not talking about a little pot or whatever, but no one I know has ever had anything good to say about Meth.
#8: tort law doesn't require an explicit contract.
From Wikipedia:
Tort is the law of civil wrongs. Tort law usually provides people with the rights to compensation when another person harms their legally protected interests. For instance, if somebody throws a ball and it accidentally hits another person in the eye, any costs of medical treatment and compensation for lost income during time off work could be paid by the person who threw the ball to the person who was hurt.
I presume OJ was sued successfully under tort law, not contract law, as an example.
IANAL but it seems to me to be almost a modern equivelent of wergeld.
Disclaimer:
By opening this package and taking this substance, agree to indemnify the provider of this substance from herein known as the 'Dealer' against any and all legal and non-legal obligations. The Dealer shall not be responsible for anything arising from the taking of this substance, including but not limited to the following: Actions that arise from having taken this substance; any short term or long term financial, medical or mental conditions that develop as a direct result of taking this substance, including but not limited to addiction, bankruptcy, mental retardation, stupidity and pregnancy. The User shall be responsible accepts all legal and non-legal consequences that arise from taking this substance.
Use only as directed.
#4
"How can you get a legal ruling on a damned illegal thing (drug sale/usage)?"
----
Didn't the US take down gangsters on tax evasion during prohibition of booze when they couldn't get them any other way?
Also.....Steven Adler, drummer for Guns and Roses sued the band for getting him hooked on smack:
"(the band settled out of court for a reported $2.5m)."
last section on this page:
http://www.heretodaygonetohell.com/articles/showarticle.php?articleid=80
I'm an ex-junkie who thinks that addicts who sue providers of drugs are all pussies. I agree with #2: "buy the ticket, take the ride."
-- Michael W. Dean
#12 posted by nzruss , January 14, 2008 9:45 AM
Disclaimer:
----
I love it. A EULA for dope!
MWD
"It does open the question; that if and when recreational drugs are legalized, what lawsuits might arise?"
The same types of lawsuits that should arise if someone introduces you to a type of alcohol that you really like, and end up with alcohol poisoning from. Or the type of lawsuits you'd get from suing someone for getting you into skateboarding, and then you break your legs.
you know, bullshit lawsuits that should get thrown out.
@#13MWD:
1. This was an IRS/Treasury Department issue, not a court case - apples and oranges.
2. No ruling, no legal intervention/precedent.
Because a British website quoting a French news service is the best source for a Canadian story!
CBC News: Sask. woman wins legal battle against drug dealer
ah, there is the mechanics of it:
"Sandra Bergen was suing Clinton Davey, but earlier this month a Saskatoon judge struck down his statement of defence after he failed to answer questions in a legal proceeding.
That means Davey is not in a position to dispute liability and the case will go back to court to determine damages, Bergen's lawyer Stuart Busse said.
Bergen says her win may be by default, but she'll take it."
As a Canadian, I am embarrassed almost daily by our so called legal system.
I find it interesting that they apparently threw out his defense in it's entirety because he wouldn't disclose his source for the meth. What? He wouldn't answer one of their questions - just one - and so the court discarded everything and issued a default judgment as if he wasn't there. That doesn't seem quite legit to me. But then again, I'm not a lawyer or judge.
And as soon as she gets her ruling - lock them both up.
Why? Shouldn't the judge be the one locked up for knowingly participating in a corrupt, dishonest system?
@#22:
Because she and he admitted, under oath, that they were drug users/dealers.
And that is illegal.
That's why.
@ Cpt. Tim, #15
Also, the kind of lawsuits that would arise if a winemaker put antifreeze in their wine, and drinkers of that wine ended up getting kidney damage, when they had a reasonable expectation to be dealing with ethanol, which they (should) know how to consume safely.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_fraud#Hazardous_materials)
i.e. legitimate suits that presently don't end up in court (because it would require the complainant to admit to acts that are presently illegal), but that should be possible in order to let the "free" market do its miraculous invisible-handed work.
laws under a lawless system have no legitimacy.
and by the way, using drugs in Canada is NOT illegal
@#25: Here comes the timfoil again...
@#26: Using/buying meth isn't illegal in Canada? Why the heck hasn't the entire population of North America moved there?!?!? 8-)
Hmmmm. So she's scapegoating. Awesome. Does this mean I should sue all my friends that introduced me to alcohol at a young age? Or the bars that served me alcohol?
Or why stop there? I'm suing Jagermeister and Shiner!
The blame for my alcoholism has to fall somewhere, certainly not on MY shoulders. I'm a victim, here!
"Also, the kind of lawsuits that would arise if a winemaker put antifreeze in their wine, and drinkers of that wine ended up getting kidney damage."
were the drugs laced with something? Because otherwise no, it wouldn't be like that at all. Ordinary wine can hurt you if you abuse it, and you can sue the winemaker for it.
Going on that logic, ordinary chemical substances, working as advertised should be subject the same rules. If someone eats themselves to death with the guacamole, its their fault. If Milton puts strychnine in it, its his fault.
Wonder what she's gonna spend that money on.
there is a difference (in Canada) between "using" and trafficking, possessing and importing/exporting.
If one was walking along and found some drugs and used them and a law enforcement enthusiast happened by, the most they could produce in charges would be possession.
@#32:
"If one was walking along and found some drugs and used them and a law enforcement enthusiast happened by, the most they could produce in charges would be possession."
After that statement, I think that we are done trying to communicate.
Bye bye.
This is the wild thrashing of a self-healing system which has failed to do so.
Courts and legislatures in "free" countries are designed to moderate each other. What we have here is a citizen improperly (or at the absolute least, unorthodoxly) using a law to achieve an end for which it was not intended.
Drug laws (and gun laws similarly), drive drug trade underground. Were drug trade legal, the government could put huge tariffs on product, regulate quantity, quality, and institute record keeping regulations... not to mention requiring dealers be licensed and supervised. THEN, when something like this happens (which ODs do all the time), a complaint would be filed with the proper boards, an investigation done, and an insurance payout made.
...because Canada (and the U.S.) is unable to stamp out drug use entirely (and chooses not to regulate [the bejesus out of] it), this situation, as strange as it may seem, is the best recourse this young woman felt she had. Interestingly, the courts thus far have supported her in this.
So I think the biggest thing we can take from this is the valid concern of a broken system both recognizing and doing nothing to fix it's brokenness.
Bottom line (finally), nothing has made cigarettes harder to get in the United States than high taxes and over-regulation, all made possible by the fact that they're legal, if barely. Draw your own conclusions.
Just to be contrary, though I agree I can't think of anything positive to say about meth (never tried it, like living too much), in the U.S. long haul truck drivers pretty much live off of caffeine and ephedrine (the meth precursor). You could almost say the nation runs on it.
And Canada runs on coffee and beer. Well, excepting those effeminate Ontarian wine-drinkers of course.
Yes, the drug laws are a major reason why both societies are going to hell in a handbasket.
I doubt the judge actually thought that the dealer was "at fault" for the heart attack. It's more likely that this was just a way to punish him for being a drug dealer.
@#23:
I don't know how things differ in Canada, but I'm pretty sure that, in the US, using illegal drugs is not in itself illegal, but rather everything else surrounding use (possession, purchasing, selling, public intoxication) is.
If it were illegal simply to use drugs, anyone could be arrested for simply admitting that they had once used an illegal substance (within the statute of limitations, of course).
I'm deeply disappointed that this wasn't first attempted in these here united states. Are our lawyers too busy with real cases?!
first they got Tommy Chong....
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/columnists/story.html?id=12d892dd-4d9c-41c2-89d7-098d16bf6d89
Fast Food Industry take heed.
Teresa!!!!!!!!!!!
See #40. It's in some of the other threads as well.
Antinous,
click on the eye to the right of the post and report it.
Ironically, this sounds a little bit more effective than the D.A.R.E. program.
Small-time dealers would find other employment if they had to pay insurance premiums.
All gone now, along with the other instances posted by the same entity. Thanks for the heads-up notices.
I always wondered what that eye was.
#38
http://alcoholism.about.com/b/2004/01/07/drug-dealer-liability-laws.htm
It must of happened in the US since this is the 15th to possibly pass a Drug-Dealer Liability Law.
Even if she wins by default, the judge could well find a substantial amount of contributory negligence on her part for taking the drugs in the first place. Heck, in the worst case she might get her damages reduced by 100% and no costs award - meaning that she'd receive nothing and have to pay her own legal fees to boot.
(Does Canada do 'contemptuous damages'? This is what English courts sometimes award to say, in effect, "you are technically right but your case is so objectionable that you get the smallest damages it is possible to award" - in other words, one penny.)
nope, Canada just has contemptuous drug laws
...This reminds me of the dipshit junkie who walked into a police station, whacked only halfway out of his gourd, and demanded that the cops arrest the pusher who sold him the coke because the stuff wasn't up to his usual expectations.
haha what
http://www.canada.com/saskatoonstarphoenix/news/story.html?id=2abb7bd3-e9ab-4a5d-87e4-a50d5030931a&k=91921
"An addict since 18, Bergen said she hadn't smoked meth for about eight months when Davey offered her the drug that night"
ok so this means she has done it before - and has assumed the risks.
"She gave him $40 for the meth even though the cost was $30. Already suffering from the sweats and hand pain of a heart attack, she was feeling too ill to demand the change."
so she should at least get the $10 owed to her then?
"Davey's grandmother, Dalis Davey, was also named in the civil suit because the overdose happened in her home. But Busse said he's considering dropping her as a defendant."
Davey's grandmother is the only person that has anything worth taking - Davey's got nothing so we'll get grandma.
"The point is he caused this problem, and he should have to pay," Busse said."
We should throw a weapons charge in as well since he obviously sold , and made her smoke the meth at gunpoint because there was no other way she would of taken it on her own after 8 months.
Why do we have to have laws and lawsuits in place to have to protect the stupid people from themselves- and then reward them?
This is perfectly reasonable to me, and I think it happens quite a bit more often than people think. It's a straightforward tort, and it doesn't open the dealer or the user up to criminal liability because there is still no way to prove exactly what the substance was as is required for possession charges.
#30
I guess I wasn't clear - I'm not saying this case is like the example I put forward. I agree with you that this sounds, from the tiny blurb it gets in the BBC story, like a meritless suit. (Although, it may be that her claim was that the dealer got her into meth deliberately in order to hurt her was found to be credible in this case. The article isn't enough to judge by).
I was adding to your answer to the Sean's question at #5 - predicting that there would be both meritless suits, of which you gave an example, and suits with merit, of which I gave an example.
In other words, drugs would become like any other product now on the market - the courts would decide which suits have merit, and which lack it, and over time things would sort themselves out into something similar to our centuries-old, legal, alcohol market.
Antinous, the eye is the lookitthat button, used to commend comments to our attention. You can use it to praise especially good comments, or point out offensive ones, or warn us of incoming spam attacks.
absurd
"who much she'll get."
WHO much? Does anyone proof read these posts?
Evil Jim, "proofread" is one word, not two.