Dumpster diving ( was RE: [rescue] The onyx godness (first pictures))

[ed at the7thbeer.com]

Blame the British.  They started it. ;)  It's a finer question/issue than
that, relating to hazards on the property (which a dumpster may be
considered to be), the status of the person entering (trespasser, child
trespasser) the property and the landowner's responsbilities (if any)
towards the trespasser.  Like I said, it varies from state to state; some
places, you may be liable to a trespasser, in other states, you are not.
The Brits started it all with their law system in classifying people who
enter property.  We just adoped it. :D

> Liability for people who come into your property's borders without asking?
> Weird folks those americans :-)

Sounds like an allegory to the "spring gun" cases.  Basically, you can
defend your property with only so much force, putting the life of even the
trespasser above the rights of the property owner in their property
(rights as they relate to fear for one's safety are not one in the same
here).  So I could possibly see that going to trial and the property owner
losing.  A famous American case is Katko v. Briney., where a landowner set
a shotgun in a bedroom on a rig to go off when the door was opened in
order to keep trespassers out.  A couple of petty thieves came along to
collect antique bottles (the land was not occupied), entered the room, gun
went off, and one guy lost his left leg from the knee down.  The
landowners were liable (civilly) for battery, the argument of self-defense
not being valid.

> I once actually heard an urban legend about someone who went to jail because
> he put glass on top of the concrete wall around his garden, and a burglar got
> wounded and bled to death.
>
>
>
> Frank
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