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Comment by brookst | Hacker News Reader

Your use of “only cause” was the first in this discussion.

Lots of people get sued for lots of things. Nowhere does it say that suits can succeed only if the defendant is the sole cause of the problem. See: Takata air bags. Huge liability, but in any given incident it wouldn’t be a problem unless someone else caused an accident. Yet Takata does not get to say “or defective product wouldn’t have been a problem if Mr. Doofus hadn’t rear-ended you”

Binary is great for computers, less good in legal thinking.

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> Your use of “only cause” was the first in this discussion.

No, but this statement implied Kia wasn't at fault because someone else committed the crime...

> I’ll take victim blaming for $200, Alex. Breaking into a house is easy as a rock through the window but we don’t sue homebuilders for not putting in stronger glass.

So sure, that was the first use of "only cause"; in the same way that "there was 1 light" and "there weren't multiple lights" aren't the same words; but they contain the same information.

What an asinine comparison. The criminal maintains full criminal liability even if the it’s an easy crime.

He was talking about civil liability. The concept you’ve tripped over here is called intervening superseding causes and the criminal only destroys the tortfeasor’s liability if his intervening criminal cause is unforeseeable.

Here, because the entire purpose of car immobilizers is theft protection, the thief is foreseeable and his crime does not supersede.

I’m a little troubled by your use of the word “asinine” in this context.

What about door locks? Or the ignition that had to be ripped out to use the usb stick trick? Does everyone have to use a club or hidden kill switch to not have them blamed.

I’d be willing to guess you won’t use this word salad when describing sexual crimes.

> Or the ignition that had to be ripped out to use the usb stick trick?

If by "ripped out," you mean depressing a tab and then pulling it out.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bTeVgfPM0Xw&t=357s

Literacy is important. I’m arguing that the criminal’s bad act does not necessarily break the chain of causation that makes Kia liable. You’re projecting that I’m blaming the consumer.

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