Suing The Avengers

(Author's note: I don't want to be a one-trick pony, so this'll be the last of my legal movie analyses for a little while - unless there's a demand... or unless I change my mind).

Warning: Spoilers! If you haven’t seen The Avengers and don’t want to know what happens, read no further.

This past May, as I sat in the theater thoroughly enjoying Joss Whedon’s “The Avengers,” I began to wonder: what if I had been injured by falling debris during the final battle between the Avengers and the invading Chitauri army?  Anyone who has seen a comic book movie knows that superheroes cause a lot of collateral damage.  The Avengers is a unique example because destruction isn’t solely the result of the alien horde descending on New York with their massive floating bio-mechanical weapons.  The good guys who are charged with protecting the city cause their fair share of damage as well.  Unlike previous superhero entries, The Avengers have not one, but three super-powered being (Hulk, Thor, Iron Man), each with significant anger issues.

In fact, it has been estimated that approximately $160 billion in property damage was caused during the battle of New York.  That figure is staggering, not least of which because, thanks to the unsurpassed leadership of Captain America, the Avengers were able to keep the battle confined to a 4-6 block radius.  We also know that the Chitauri invaded New York without warning and the sudden nature of the attack meant that the Avengers did not have enough time to clear the battle zone of bystanders.  The film goes out of its way to show us innocent civilians caught in the crossfire.  It stands to reason that with so much damage, a storm of laser fire, and so little opportunity to get innocents out of harms way, someone is going to get badly hurt.  So when the battle is done and the superheroes have long since departed, who can you sue to recover your medical costs?

The obvious answer is to sue S.H.I.E.L.D.  After all, S.H.I.E.L.D. assembled the Avengers, and in legal parlance, is both the “actual” and “proximate” cause of the injuries.  But S.H.I.E.L.D. is a government agency and is protected by Sovereign Immunity, a legal doctrine that prevents government entities from being sued for monetary damages.  In certain situations, however, the government can waive its immunity by way of the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), which allows federal agencies to be sued for damages as if they were private entities.  Under the FTCA, if you can prove that the Avengers acted without due care in their rescue of the city, you can sue S.H.I.E.L.D. for the negligent acts of its employees (in tort law, we call this Respondeat Superior).

Thus, in order to sue S.H.I.E.L.D. under the FTCA, we must determine if Iron Man, Hulk and Thor are employees of S.H.I.E.L.D.  The FTCA defines employee as, “officers or employees of any federal agency, members of the military or naval forces of the United States, members of the National Guard while engaged in training or duty… and persons acting on behalf of a federal agency in an official capacity, temporarily or permanently in the service of the United States, whether with or without compensation….”  So, were Iron Man, Hulk, and Thor acting on behalf of S.H.I.E.L.D. in an official capacity?

It’s best to stop right here because this will lead us down a rabbit hole that isn’t worth the travel.  S.H.I.E.L.D. can probably be liable for your medical costs, but there are inherent problems with suing a clandestine black-ops organization staffed predominantly with super-powered beings.  Chiefly, how can you know such an organization even exists?  To the best of my recollection, the finale of The Avengers had various news reports blaming the team individually for the destruction and nary a mention of their handler organization was to be found anywhere.  As far as the public is concerned S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn’t officially exist.  And even if you were to somehow hale them into court, you're only going to anger them.  And we all know what happens when you get Bruce Banner angry.

Besides, there’s lower hanging fruit to be had.

You can sue Tony Stark in his individual capacity for negligent rescue.  After all, he’s a billionaire and can afford it.  Not only that, he’s the sole member of the Avengers whose real life identity is known to the public at large.   A lawsuit against Stark sounding in negligence is a goodly bet.

In tort law, there is generally no duty to rescue someone in distress.  However, if you do commence a rescue, it must be done reasonably.  Any defendant who rescues unreasonably can be liable under a negligence action if the aggrieved party is injured as a result of the unreasonable rescue.  In this case, there’s no legal precedent instructing us how to deal with an armored man wearing jet boots leading an alien horde bent on destruction through the city.  Even still, I would be willing to argue in front of a judge that Stark’s actions, though well intentioned, were unreasonable.  Why?

1. At extreme speed, Stark led hundreds of aliens on a chase through the canyons of Manhattan, weaving in and out of columns, buildings, and directly into heavily trafficked areas.  Any professional driver will tell you that as velocity increases, there’s an inverse relationship with control (there’s a reason the world’s fastest cars are driven in the middle of the desert… they can’t stop and don’t corner).  Stark would know this due to his extensive time in the Iron Man prosthesis.
2. Both Stark and his alien nemeses fired lasers at each other for the duration of this chase.  Logic tells us how difficult it is to hit a moving target; it is even more difficult when both targets are moving at great speed.  The likelihood of both Stark and the Chitauri warriors accidentally striking bystanders and real property with their laser blasts is increased exponentially.  Moreover, Stark is a world-renowned genius (he built a fist-sized fusion reactor in a cave with only spare missile parts, after all).  He either knew or should have known the likelihood of causing bystander injury, yet he continued to lead chase through Manhattan.
3. Later in the battle, Stark led a hundred foot long space snake directly down Park Ave into the path of Bruce Banner, whose ability to stop the snake was, as far as Stark is concerned, highly questionable.  At this point in the battle, Banner had not yet transformed into the Hulk and had not demonstrated to his teammates that he could call out the Hulk at his command (it was pretty awesome though, right?).  As far as Stark knew, he was leading that beast right into the heart of Manhattan where it would crash into the team, killing every member of the Avengers, destroying a significant part of mid-town, and possible murdering hundreds – if not thousands – of innocent New Yorkers.

When you willfully undertake a rescue that could wind up killing thousands, that is per se unreasonable.  If I were a lawyer in the Marvel Universe, I would be unhesitant in representing a class-action suit against Tony Stark in his individual capacity.

There may be more causes of action that I just can’t think of at the moment, but I think Stark is your best bet to recover damages in a case like this.  And honestly, you’re lucky if you get injured in an attack that was prevented by Iron Man.  Imagine if all that damage were caused by a hero with no assets... like Aquaman.

In Defense of The Dent Act

Summer 2012 has given us two of the biggest films in history, both from a cultural and box-office standpoint.  With the summer movie season waning, I thought this was a good opportunity to  look back and discuss the relationship these films have with the law.  Today, I begin with The Dark Knight Rises.

Warning: Spoilers! If you haven’t seen The Dark Knight Rises and don’t want to know what happens, read no further.

The Dark Knight Rises raised a number of interesting legal issues that could each be the subject of their own posts: the way the film dealt with the Bruce Wayne bankruptcy, the federal response to the siege of Gotham, to name a few.  But one stands taller than the others and that's the subject of this post.

In the immediate aftermath of the movie’s release, there was some discord amongst critics about one issue in particular… something they felt was so wrong-headed that they had to call the director on it – they hated the Dent Act. More specifically, there was some hand-wringing over the Act’s constitutionality.

Cliff notes version: it is utterly constitutional.

Let’s step back for a minute.  What exactly is the Dent Act? At the beginning of the film, we learn that shortly after the death of Gotham’s District Attorney Harvey Dent, sweeping anti-crime legislation was passed that gave the city’s police and prosecutors “teeth” to fight organized crime in the city.  We know that eight years after Dent’s demise, the Dent Act did it’s job, almost completely decimating crime in the city, and leaving a gaping hole for Bane and his League of Shadows thugs to storm in and take the city.

So what tools does the Dent Act grant law enforcement Gotham City to combat organized crime?  Did the Act authorize a mass hiring of police officers, in effect turning Gotham into a police state?  Did it place stricter sentences on those convicted of organized crime activities?  Did it finally root out the bad guys in Gotham’s notoriously corrupt police force?  Unfortunately, the movie doesn’t tell us much about the mechanics of the law and only pays it lip service before delving into the “Batman coming out of retirement” storyline. The only substantive information we have on the Dent Act is told to the audience by Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character; apparently the Act has kept hundreds of mobsters behind bars by denying them parole.

I readily admit ignorance here. Like others when I first heard this, I threw my hands up in disgust.  “How unconstitutional is that?!” I nearly screamed aloud to my wife in the theater.  As it turns out, it’s pretty damn constitutional.

Let’s get some basic facts out of the way: the discretion to grant or deny parole typically resides in a state’s parole board.  They have the right to determine if an offender should be released before his full sentence has been served and they may grant or deny parole based on a variety of factors.  What concerned me was whether a piece of legislation could make that determination for them.

As a rule, states have the power to regulate their own law enforcement and legislate their own criminal codes.  With some Eighth Amendment exceptions (such as sentencing juveniles to life in prison with no possibility of parole), the state is allowed to make a blanket determination regarding who should and should not be released from incarceration before the full sentence has been served.

In reality, many states have done just that. The Massachusetts legislature recently considered an overhaul of the state’s criminal sentencing laws that, among other things, would abolish parole for repeat violent offenders. Massachusetts already bans parole for anyone convicted of first-degree murder. Pennsylvania considered a similar overhaul of their criminal sentencing statutes three years ago.  Sixteen states have taken it much farther by abolishing the parole system altogether.

Therefore denial of parole under the Dent Act for prisoners convicted of violent crimes such as murder, assault, or drug dealing (in many states, crimes of possession with intent to distribute are considered crimes of violence) is constitutional because there is a framework for just that kind of legislation in other states.  On the other hand, I think the Dent Act will have a harder time demonstrating its constitutionality when is denies parole to those convicted of non-violent crimes such as racketeering, gambling, prostitution, and money laundering.

Movies so often get it wrong when it comes to portraying the law so it’s nice to find a case where the movie gets it right (even though I’m convinced no one in the screenwriting process actually did the necessary legal research).  While we don’t know anything else about the substance of the Dent Act, the parts we do know about will probably hold up under scrutiny.  And frankly, even without knowing the Act’s other substantive provisions, I think that denying parole to 1000 dangerous and violent criminals would be enough to give Gotham’s Police Department a break in getting its crime problem under control.  Putting the Batman out of the job was probably just icing on the cake.