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I don't get why if you post a topic ON A PUBLIC FORUM that you would like other's opinions on, you get accused of looking for drama and attention. How totally bizarre.
Glad to see that most who post on this threat found it as appalling as I did.
I will stand by my position that people who are defending this behavior or accusing me of starting drama or looking for attention are crappy people who would do this themselves. Unreal.
I don't get why, if you post a topic ON A PUBLIC FORUM that you would like other's opinions on, you get so upset when others don't entirely agree with you based solely on what you've posted.
The majority of comments have been made very civilly and yet your response is that those who don't share your opinion (and again based on very scant third hand information which you've given) are "crappy people who would do this themselves". I prefer to not make grand assumptions based on minimal data.
I don't get why, if you post a topic ON A PUBLIC FORUM that you would like other's opinions on, you get so upset when others don't entirely agree with you based solely on what you've posted.
The majority of comments have been made very civilly and yet your response is that those who don't share your opinion (and again based on very scant third hand information which you've given) are "crappy people who would do this themselves". I prefer to not make grand assumptions based on minimal data.
I wasn't talking about people who might not feel as I do on the subject. That speaks more about them than me.
I was accused of "looking for drama and attention" for simply posting the topic. That's what bothers me. No need to get personal. I have been on these forums and I resent that.
How ANYONE could not think it is wrong for the landlord to tape personal vital information to the front of garbage bags on a NYC street and could justify it as the tenant's carelessness is just mind blowing.
I don't get why, if you post a topic ON A PUBLIC FORUM that you would like other's opinions on, you get so upset when others don't entirely agree with you based solely on what you've posted.
The majority of comments have been made very civilly and yet your response is that those who don't share your opinion (and again based on very scant third hand information which you've given) are "crappy people who would do this themselves". I prefer to not make grand assumptions based on minimal data.
Thank you, STT, for addressing the hissy fit that was just thrown by the OP, lol.....
The absurdity of the name calling is almost comical.
I wasn't talking about people who might not feel as I do on the subject. That speaks more about them than me.
And again, your assumptive opinion of those people does sound dismissively derogatory.
I was accused of "looking for drama and attention" for simply posting the topic. That's what bothers me. No need to get personal. I have been on these forums and I resent that.
With all due respect, ma'am, one poster and one poster only made the comment, "Actually I think you just like the drama and attention this topic is bringing you."
How ANYONE could not think it is wrong for the landlord to tape personal vital information to the front of garbage bags on a NYC street and could justify it as the tenant's carelessness is just mind blowing.
And all I can do is once again note that forum contributors are being asked for their opinion about a situation which has been presented by someone with no direct knowledge of either it or the parties involved and this whole thread is based on assumption - and you know what's said about that! The only opinion I've felt even remotely qualified to address is the general legality of going through someone else's garbage.
And all I can do is once again note that forum contributors are being asked for their opinion about a situation which has been presented by someone with no direct knowledge of either it or the parties involved and this whole thread is based on assumption - and you know what's said about that! The only opinion I've felt even remotely qualified to address is the general legality of going through someone else's garbage.
So do you don't feel there is anything wrong with taping someone's personal information to the front of a garbage bag on a busy street? How do I have no direct knowledge of it? I work with the girl for over three years and she showed me photos of the garbage bags with the stuff taped to it-like she was looking for me to pat her on the back for a job well done. It's not like I'm just saying I overhead something like this happening, she showed it to me and was proud of it. There are no assumptions here, just facts!
Even if there was bad blood between the landlord and tenant, that no way justified what she did. That's the whole point of what I was trying to say.
[NOTE: This post only applies to the hypothetical dumpster digger scenario]
There are several other tests to uphold proximation cause beyond simply "reasonable knowledge"; you must establish an a unbroken chain of causation.
That "proximate cause" argument would fail because there is a major delay between the garbage digger and the identity theft, because the identity thief was a separate actor making his/her own decisions, and because the identity thief and the garbage digger do not know each other or share benefit of the crime. The garbage digger's act is sufficiently separate to avoid direct "proximation".
Another defense would be that the identity thief was already in a dumpster grabbing that bag, thus the taping to the front was indeed merely rearranging the contents. The thief was already intending to go through the bags for identity theft info, so it fails the famous "but-for" test of common causation. Can you say "But for the taping, the identity thief wouldn't have found the info"? No, he was already in the dumper digging himself.
Like I said, the dumpster digger merely re-arranged what was already there. The thief who later came by chose to get in a dumpster and start digging through the trash for identity info. It's most reasonable to say that he would have found it anyway.
LOL, you know I think you're brilliant, but how about using the scenario we've been given. Personal identity info taped on bags and left on NYC street. Not in a dumpster where someone is digging.
There's such a thing as an "attractive nuisance" where a land owner who has a pond that is attractive to children along a path where children walk home from school. A child drowns in the pond while swimming with friends. The land owner had a duty to fence that pond so children couldn't get into it. There's no connection between the children and the land owner. But, the land owner should have known that children would be drawn to the pond and could drown in it. He wasn't the actual cause of the drowning, but he was the proximate cause. And it was reasonably foreseeable that this type of situation could occur.
At any rate, they don't have to know each other - the LL and the thief walking by on the NYC street (not in a dumpster). The LL doesn't have to profit from the crime.
And the chain of events wouldn't be broken between the LL putting the info out for the world to see and the thief taking it. A break in the chain would be something more like...LL puts garbage out on the street, garbage man takes the garbage home, intending to steal the ID then changes his mind, puts the garbage into his own garbage can, then a thief comes along and takes the garbage man's garbage and then steals the tenant's ID.
At least that's how I recall it from school, but it has been quite a while, so I couldn't swear I'm a complete genius in this case...
Anyway, we're probably boring everyone to tears with the legal discussion, though I'm enjoying myself immensely .
LOL, you know I think you're brilliant, but how about using the scenario we've been given. Personal identity info taped on bags and left on NYC street. Not in a dumpster where someone is digging. {snip}
Because I was responding to another poster's proposed scenario up thread - please see his post. His situation was black and white, but he was still coming to the wrong conclusion about traditional liability. I told him why his "simple" hypothetical example still didn't cut the "liability" mustard.
I disagree about any potential liability in this landlord case UNLESS it's argued that the landlord had more responsibility for the contents of the bags because they were left inside the unit, not on the street. I'm guessing a case could be made on those grounds and whatever statues applied to handling a tenants property in the first few days after they move out.
I'm not sure that garbage was strictly "abandoned property" the next morning inside a house...and it doesn't really matter here because no one is suing. That's why I didn't bother. I don't have to bother, of course, I only discuss what interests me enough to weigh in.
Attractive nuisance is an extreme case and still sometimes fails in court. Garbage bags and bank statements don't attract vulnerable people to their deaths, so its not applicable.
It's also relatively "new law". A generation ago people weren't responsible for burglars/trespassers on their land even if the trespasser broke in to their pet tiger's kennel. Heck, there was an old case where a boat operator stood by and watched his own client drown, not even throwing him a rope laying nearby. That was upheld as "tough luck, buddy" by the courts, but that was in the 1920s.
Attractive nuisance is an extreme case and still sometimes fails in court. Garbage bags and bank statements don't attract vulnerable people to their deaths, so its not applicable.
True. It was a bad example. My point was that the negligent person doesn't even have to know the person who gets "hurt" or be personally involved in the event to be held liable for damages due to his/her negligence. Doesn't have to know the thief or personally profit, etc.
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