How close to criminal negligence are we

[Lohman446]

This idea came up in another thread, and I am curious to others viewpoints on it. We have always asked ourselves how close we are to "someday someones going to get sued and things will change". Now I have taken the stance on this that its not likely to happen - that most players are pretty judgement proof and the big companies would absorb it as a cost of doing business.

I think this may not be the major concern. Many markers, at least those that ramp and bounce, appear to me to be in clear violation of the ATSM standards. What about those that the triggers are set so loose on that you can make the marker fire by bumping it. I'm sure there are various others.

At what point do we come too close to the line - the line of criminal negligence in our apathy of these standards - players, manufacturers, sellers... We either need to address ATSM standards to today and change them to reflect todays ideas, or look at conforming to them as they are now. I prefer the first option.

I'm not a lawyer, I do not know the answers exactly, but I have this feeling that we are coming close to lines that are not about civil suits - lines that could find a player, a manufacturer, a seller as defendents in the criminal courts. Thoughts? Ideas? Am I just way off base and looking for an issue?

PS - Don't for a moment think that I am being holier than thou in these considerations - I use ramping software... I like it. But this discussion, carried from a different thread is one that we, as players and those involved in paintball, need to have. At least in my mind.

[CKY_Alliance]

Is there really criminal negligence to it..if the person hurt or injured is playing on his/her own free will? I underdstand if they are hurt by somone shooting in an illegal mode but the person injured still knows the risk and knows that the cheat modes are out there.
i think proposing criminal negligence is a little extreme.The person is not intentionaly hurting the other person then again there is a such thing as an unintentional tort...but negligence would be intentional so a person could have a civil suit for an unintentional tort but the other person would not be acting negligently since it was not on purpose.my thoughts are kinda scttered so if that doesnt make since sorry..and plz correct me if i am wrong just using what little bit of knowledge i have of civil law.

[Won Hunglo]

Some days I have to make a choice. Should I freeze my balls or shoot marbles from my ramping & bouncing 3.7 FLY? Soooo many suckers. So few marbles and frozen paintballs.

Criminal negligence? No way. Screw'em if they can't take a joke.

[Lohman446]

Think of it from a different perspective, someone who doesn't know or doesn't care about the "everyone else does it so do I" line of reasoning.

The hypothetical you is playing paintball and is using ramping software... the unthinkable happens and someone is killed because you were banging the bunker as you came around, pulled the trigger three times and put nine shots - three pulls into a sensitive area. The victim dies shortly thereafter. I'm not even going to get into what happens if you were using ramping velocity.

You have violated known and accepted ATSM standards - standards that prohibit ramping. You knowingly violated the safety standards the industry agreed to adn someones death resulted. I do not beleive that negligent criminal acts do not require intent (remember I have been arguing intent all this time in regards to my civil liability and insurance). Under my understanding your willful disregard for ATSM standards may make you - as a player criminally negligent. It may be possible to go after the makers who have produced markers in disregard of "industry accepted standards". Are you sure that you are not criminally negligent should someone push it?

[Lohman446]

Some days I have to make a choice. Should I freeze my balls or shoot marbles from my ramping & bouncing 3.7 FLY? Soooo many suckers. So few marbles and frozen paintballs.

Criminal negligence? No way. Screw'em if they can't take a joke.

You say it as a joke, and I don't dispute that. But is not that example just the extreme example of disregard for the safety standards that prohibit bounce and ramping? How, except in the extreme, is ramping and bouncing, in the eyes of negligence, different?

[PBX Ronin 23]

In the absence of a regulatory agency that govern what goes on within an industry, the courts will look at some quasi-governmental body like the ASTM to determine and define what falls within the realm of acceptability and reason.

If a catastrophe strikes.....citing a hypothetical accidental death that occurs involving ramping software, any competent attorney will be able to point the finger at so many people who can be at some point culpable for that death. The field operator where the death occured, his insurance carrier, the manufacturer of the equipment used, the software programmer, etc., even before that same attorney goes full bore after the perpetrating individual. Blanket suit is a very likely scenario and that's only on the civil end.

Criminal charges? If I was the parent of the dead player, I'd make sure everyone pays for my loss both in civil and criminal court. A competent attorney can very easily get that done.

Should this be a scenario to be feared by the industry? Maybe, maybe not. But at the very least show some attempt to address it pre-emptively if not for the safety of the players, then for the security of their pocket books.

[CKY_Alliance]

if someone killed another person using ramping or some other program they still would not be acting criminaly negligent, or negligent for that matter since they did not purposley kill/harm them.

also in a civil court the field/player and or the manufactuer of the marker may be charged with stirct liability even though there are waivers/warnings etc.i think they could be atleast not positive.

[PBX Ronin 23]

if someone killed another person using ramping or some other program they still would not be acting criminaly negligent, or negligent for that matter since they did not purposley kill/harm them.

Does the insurance company who provides the coverage for the field allow for such a firing mode? In all likelihood, no. If that is the case and that player used an "illegal" board that gave his gun a ramping mode that killed another player, yes he could be found criminally negligent. If he is a minor, a good lawyer can make a case about his parents being criminally negligent.

[Lohman446]

if someone killed another person using ramping or some other program they still would not be acting criminaly negligent, or negligent for that matter since they did not purposley kill/harm them.

also in a civil court the field/player and or the manufactuer of the marker may be charged with stirct liability even though there are waivers/warnings etc.i think they could be atleast not positive.

Negiligent criminal charges do not require INTENT... they require NEGLIGENCE. That is at least in my understanding of the law - I'm not a lawyer.

If you are going 180MPH on the road - when the accepted limit is 60 (notice the three times the legal limit, like three shots one pull) you will almost definetly face some type of criminal action involving negligence, even if you never intended to kill someone.

[CKY_Alliance]

completely disregard what i said. they would be negligent becasue they unintentionaly harmed someone by desregarding others. i mixed some stuff up. But they wouldnt be criminally negligent. i dotn believe they would~im just confusing myself

[PBX Ronin 23]

To carry this argument further, I'd like to know whether a company like Tadao or Advantage carries any product liability insurance for their boards.

I'd like to know whether the team owners or team sponsors carry enough liability insurance in the event that somebody get injured with an illegal piece of equipment used by one of their players.

Does the NPPL and PSP have insurance that includes coverage for injuries sustained against equipment that doesn't fall within parameters prescribed by the ASTM?

If they don't, WHY NOT? If in the name of competition and doing everything that you feel you must do to win, why can't they at least cover the players against the worse case scenario.

[Burphel]

Lets not forget that we're not talking about what's right or wrong, but what's legal and what isn't.

To use an ancient example from common law, a man chopping wood with an axe is not liable should the head of the axe come loose and hit someone unless he knew the head of the axe was loose.

So, we have a common adopted safety standard, ASTM. We have people at various levels in the industry from the heads of corporations to individual players who make, sell, and use equipment that does not meet that standard and is therefore unsafe. If someone gets hurt, all those people can and very well may be held liable.

Oh, then there's another matter... Somebody gets hurt because nobody in the industry really pays much attention to the self-imposed safety standards, and the government might just decide that it's time they stepped in and imposed a set of standards that *will* be complied with.


At some point, the people in the paintball industry are going to have to take a look at the long-term effects of their current marketing strategies. Selling lots of paint in the short term could have pretty disasterous effects on their businesses (oh, and our little hobby) in the long term.

[AGD]

Ok here is an actual true case:
President of a company tells his people to cut off the tops of the empty 55 gallon arsenic drums and use them as garbage cans. Everything is fine for about 10 years and then his employees start dying. He was a corporation which normally protects the owner from personal liability in a lawsuit against the company (may paintball companies understand this very well). But in this case the courts cut through the "corporate veil" and went after the owner personally. They took everything he had and threw him in jail. This was because he knowingly violated industry standards that jeopordized the lives of his employees.

So, we all know what the industry standards are.
We also know a guy in England died after getting shot in the head.
The companies all voted on the standards and were completely aware of them.
Those same companies have now elected not to follow those guidelines.
The companies did it because of competitive pressure in other words "for the money"

Now ask yourself, if you were sitting on the jury, how would you vote?

AGD

[Conversekidz]

In your example, the shoot someone and them dying. That would be considered man slaughter and you would do jail time for it. Its not 1st or 2nd degree murder, but would fall into the realm of man slaughter.


One thing people need to keep in mind as well is a paintball gun is still a class ??? don't know the number weapon (less than leathal), so it would still be considered a weapon if someone died.

[shartley]