Suppose that you are the judge in the lawsuit described in the following article. Under various assumptions, discuss the senses in which your decision "matters" and the senses in which it might not. Which of your assumptions seems most reasonable to you?
Bee Trial Brings Up Sticky Mess
If you stay in this business long enough, sooner or later you deal with everything. This column, for example, is about insects depositing waste material-forgive the euphemism- on cars. The issue comes up because in Macomb, Illinois, there is a lawsuit that charges that bees did $25,000 worth of damage to the paint on new cars by dropping their waste on them. Anyway, the Macomb suit alleges that as much as 1.5 million bees were brought to a clover field across the road from a line of new car dealerships. The suit says the beekeeper and the landowner "should have known that said bees would rise up out of their hives and travel the short distance to the Mac Ford [or Kelly Pontiac] lot to deposit the fecal excrement upon said automobiles." Bee waste, it seems, contains acid that eats through automotive paint, right down to the bare metal, according to Bob Allen, a co-owner of Mac Ford. Now suppose that the "victim" is not a car dealer but a large collection of motorists whose cars are attacked whenever they drive by the area. How would your answer change? What are some of the important factors that you would take into account in making your decision?