Whose fault is it when someone accidentally slips in front of your business or place of residence and gets fatally injured? Before you answer, let me present a real-life example.
The building where the incident occurred was an ice cream factory. An ice cream company leases the building from a landlord. The incident in question involved an injured party who had slipped on some chocolate, which had melted and dripped onto the sidewalk. The chocolate was produced by an independent chocolate company, which sublets its factory space upstairs above the ice cream company, with sublease payments given directly to the ice cream company.
The reasons why the chocolate had dripped onto the sidewalk are quite complicated. An excess amount of heat was generated by a machine used by the ice cream company, which the ice cream company rents from an industrial machine rental company. The machine rental company had promised that the machine's running temperature would never exceed 165ºF; nevertheless, the temperature approached nearly 225ºF, and an undue amount of steam was released into the air, causing severe damage to the ceiling of the ice cream factory. Eventually, after several months, the damage became apparent and the factory ceiling had begun to curve.
The ice cream company reported the problem to the landlord, who claimed that either the ice cream company was responsible, or the factory construction company, or perhaps the company that produced the non-bowing ceiling roof beams used by the construction company. Whatever the case, the landlord said as long as there wasn't a safety hazard, which he proved there wasn't by bringing in a building inspector to inspect the ceiling, no one was really responsible for anything.
The curved ice cream factory ceiling, which was also the chocolate company's floor, wreaked havoc on the chocolate company's chocolate drying processes. Things made a turn for the worse during the week of the fateful day.
A company had placed a large ice cream order with the ice cream company, promising they would be able to pick up the order on Tuesday. At the end of the day Monday, however, the company called to say that they would not be able to pick up the ice cream until Wednesday. The company who had placed the large ice cream order was a catering company, and had been informed by a customer that, due to a severe weather warning issued by the government, a planned outdoor event would be delayed from Tuesday until Wednesday. The ice cream would not be needed, therefore, until Wednesday.
The ice cream company always adds fresh chocolate to their chocolate ice cream on the day before an ice cream order is to be shipped or picked up. Because the ice cream wouldn't be mixed until Tuesday, and because they had nowhere to store the large quantity of chocolate, they requested that the chocolate company hold their chocolate order from Monday until Tuesday.
To the surprise of everyone, even the weather service which had issued the warning, it did not rain on Tuesday. In fact, it was quite sunny and hot. Unfortunately, it just so happened that the building's central air conditioning was not working on that day. Because the air conditioning repair company had not been called in time by the building management company, they were not able to repair the air conditioning before that week, causing the air temperature in the chocolate company to be quite hot. The building management company claims it did not call the air conditioning repair company because the landlord failed to make his building management payment on time, which the landlord claimed was because the ice cream company failed to pay its lease on time, which the ice cream company claimed was because the chocolate company failed to pay its sublease on time, which the chocolate company claimed was paid on time. Since the chocolate company had predated its sublease check and had given it directly to the ice cream company rather than having mailed it, there was no record of when the check was actually submitted.
The chocolate, sitting through an unplanned and unnecessarily long air-drying process, began to melt. The angle of the ceiling, or in this case, floor, had just gotten to the point at which it was so steep that the melting chocolate actually dripped downwards on its drying rack toward the window.
The window, of course, was left open due to the nonworking air conditioning, allowing the chocolate to drip out of the window and onto the sidewalk. An unsuspecting individual, walking past the ice cream company factory minutes later, slipped on the melted chocolate, cracked his skull, and died seconds later.
Coincidence? I don't think so.
Sidewalks are "public" property. Can't the government keep a goddamn sidewalk clean?
