RSS FeedThe case of the collapsing chair
By Scott Christiansen
Anchorage Press
Published/Last Modified on Monday, September 29, 2008 12:58 PM AKDT
Flashlight had wondered about the state liability law in Alaska. Just what kind of a system do we have if you can’t successfully sue a lawyer? Both sides admitted the chair collapsed. Both knew who owned the chair. Are we not consumer-friendly enough to validate a claim when someone was injured while visiting a business?
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Jeffrey Kroll, a plaintiff’s attorney who takes liability case in Illinois and teaches law at Northwestern University, in Evanston, Illinois, read the decision for us, and says Alaska seems to fall on the business-friendly end of the spectrum.
“I don’t have a quarrel with the decision based on Alaska Law. But I have a problem, globally, with the fact that this man was injured and no one is responsible for it,” Kroll said. “The poor guy had a double whammy. He is going to see a lawyer—which can’t be good news—and then he is injured.”
Readers shouldn’t fret that Flashlight contacted an Illinois attorney; Alaska has no law school. (We not sure if that makes all our attorneys carpetbaggers, but we do know it makes law professors tough to find here. Plus, Kroll’s out of the fray, not involved in the furniture case.)
“(Alaska courts) put a burden of proof on the consumer to show that someone is negligent and (show) that the consumer did nothing wrong,” Kroll said, “This poor guy does not know someone is negligent. He just knows he was injured and nobody is going to be held responsible.”
Liability law “really is sort of a state-by-state thing,” Kroll said. There are states where the collapsing chair case could’ve gone the other way. Kroll said a drift toward a more consumer-friendly environment would be gradual and led by lawmakers not courts, he said. “The legislature is one making these decisions, because they enact statutes that set these standards,” he said.
Covell, on the other hand, knows his way around Alaska’s tort system. He once represented a woman who broke her leg after slipping on some ice at the Carlson Center in Fairbanks. She asked for $400,000 and lost.
Covell’s office furniture failed during a 2002 meeting between Ken Covell, a client and a third man named Charles Burnett, the victim of the furniture failure. (We did not find Burnett in the phone directory. The Fairbanks Daily News Miner found him, and reports that his weight is now 290. The paper also reports Burnett’s intent during the 2002 meeting was to help his friend fire Covell.)
Covell said one thing we don’t see in the court decision is an attempt by his insurance company to settle the matter. He added that businesses protect clients and customers through insurance. “I pay my insurance premium. If I am responsible, I will pay for it,” Covell said. “There is no obvious negligence here, and I sit in those chairs.”
And Burnett’s lawsuit came as a complete surprise. “When the guy was here, I asked if he was hurt and he said, ‘No.’ Then I didn’t hear about it for (about) 18 months.” Covell said.
The Supreme Court decision says Alaska law requires strict liability only for the manufacturer or a seller of a product that causes harm. Covell did not put the chair in “the stream of commerce” the decision says in a portion in dismissing Burnett’s product liability argument. Burnett—represented by attorney Ken Jacobus—wanted the court to extend Alaska’s doctrine of strict liability to include Covell.
So let’s review: Alaska law sets tough standards for consumers suing businesses; and, given a chance, Alaska courts upheld those standards. So much for alleged “judicial activism” from our system of “unelected” judges.
Kroll—our plaintiff’s attorney expert—admittedly doesn’t have reams of Alaska law to draw from, but he read the Burnett v. Covell decision and doesn’t like what it shows. He said Alaska might be too business-friendly. “It is almost like these businesses and corporations get a free-ride for the first injury. They get that first free injury to put them on notice,” he says.
Copyright © 2009 Anchorage Press
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