Question

A. Explain the elements of negligence and why the plaintiffs felt the defendants were negligent.

B. Why did the appeals court rule in favor of the defendants in this case?

C. In your opinion, do you believe the defendants owed a duty of care to the plaintiffs? Explain your viewpoint.

CASE 5.3 FEDERAL COURT CASE Duty of Care James v. Meow Media, Inc 300 F.3d 683, 2002 U.S. App. Lexis 16185 (2002) United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is whether the deaths of Jaimes, Steger, movies to Carneal, who killed the plaintiffs' three and Hadley were the reasonably foreseeable result of the defendants' creation and distribution of their games, movie, and Internet sites." -Boggs, Circuit Judge children? Language of the Court Facts Michael Carneal was a 14-year-old freshman student in high school in Paducah, Kentucky. Carneal regu larly played violent interactive video and computer sames that involved the player shooting virtual oppo- Our inquiry is whether the deaths of James Steger, and Hadley were the reasonably fore seeable result of the defendants' creation and distribution of their games, movie, and In- ternet sites. It appears simply impossible to predict that these games, movie, and Internet sites would incite a young person to violence We find that it is simply too far a leap from shooting characters on vceo screen (an nents with computer guns and other weapons. Carneal also watched violent video-recorded movies and In ternet sites. Carneal took a .22-caliber pistol and five shotguns into the lobby of his high school and shot actiity undertaken by millions) to shooting several of his fellow students, killing three and wound. people in a classroom (an activity underta ing many others. The three students killed were Jes sica James, Kayce Steger, and Nicole Hadley - by a handful, at most) for Carneal's actions to have been reasonably foreseeable to the man- ufacturers of the media that Carneal played The parents of the three dead children sued the producers and distributors of the violent video games and movies that Carneal had watched previous to the shooting. The parents sued to recover damages for Decision wrongful death, alleging that the defendants were The U.S court of appeals held that the defendant negligent in producing and distributing such games video game and movie producers and distributors and movies to Carneal. The U.S. district court ap- plied Kentucky law and held that the defendants did were not liable to the plaintiffis not owe or breach a duty to the plaintiffs and there- fore were not liable for negligence. The plaintif's ap-Ethics Questions pealed to the U.S. Court of appeals and vieved Do producers and distributors owe a duty to society not to produce and distribute violent games and Issue Are the video and movie producers liable to the plain- movies? Are any free speech issues involved in this tiffs for selling and licensing violent video games and case?

Answer 1

A) James's complaint named as defendants the companies that produce or maintain the above-mentioned movie, video games, and internet sites. James stated essentially three causes of action against the defendants. First, James alleged that the defendants had been negligent in that they either knew or should have known that the distribution of their material to Carneal and other young people created an unreasonable risk of harm to others. James alleged that exposure to the defendants' material made young people insensitive to violence and more likely to commit violent acts. But for Carneal's steady diet of the defendants' material, James contended, Carneal would not have committed his violent acts.

James asserted that the video game cartridges, movie cassettes, and internet transmissions that the defendants produced and distributed were “products” for purposes of Kentucky product liability law. According to James, the violent features of the movie, games, and internet sites were product defects. The defendants, as producers and distributors of the “products,” are strictly liable under Kentucky law for damages caused by such product defects.

James contends that the defendants, in this case, acted negligently, perhaps in producing, but at least in distributing to young people, their materials. It was this negligence, according to James, that caused Carneal to undertake his violent actions and that thereby caused the deaths of the plaintiffs' daughters. In order to establish an actionable tort under Kentucky law, the plaintiff must establish that the defendant owed a duty of care to the plaintiff, that the defendant breached that duty of care, and that the defendant's breach was the proximate cause of the plaintiff's damages.

B) The U.S. District Court in Paducah dismissed the case. That court said in part that "attaching tort liability to the effect that such ideas have on a criminal act would raise significant constitutional problems under the First Amendment that ought to be avoided."

The lower court also said, and the appeals court agreed, that the defendants "were under no duty to protect [the three murdered students] from Carneal's actions.

Finally, the district court held that James had not stated a viable RICO claim against the defendant internet firms. Among other reasons, the district court explained that James had alleged RICO predicate acts, but had failed to identify an organization that had been corrupted, and had failed to show any injury to “business or property” as required for standing under RICO.

C) I think that Carneal's actions were not sufficiently foreseeable to impose a duty of reasonable care on the defendants with regard to Carneal's victims. Alternatively, even if such a duty existed, Carneal's actions constituted a superseding cause of the victims' injuries, defeating the element of proximate causation notwithstanding the defendants' negligence. With regard to James's second cause of action, the “thoughts, ideas and images” purveyed by the defendants' movie, video games, and internet sites were not “products” for purposes of Kentucky law and therefore the defendants could not be held strictly liable for any alleged defects.