Bizarre, International, Politics, Society, Torts

Defective Product? Pakistani Protester Dies After Inhaling Smoke From Burning American Flag

In a bizarre (and some would say poetic) twist on the recent violent protests against the United States, a Pakistani protester, Abdullah Ismail, died after reportedly inhaling smoke from a burning American flag in Lahore.

Ismail died at Mayo Hospital a day after attending the protest and flag burning. His associates said that he immediately felt ill after inhaling the smoke from the burning flag.

Now here is a provocative thought for torts. The Supreme Court has said that flag burning is protected speech and has long been a common expression of protest. See Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397 (1989) and U.S. v. Eichman, 496 U.S. 310 (1990 If flag manufacturers can expect that a certain number of flags will be burned, is this a case of “foreseeable misuse” for a product liability case. The claim would be that the highly toxic chemicals are a defective design due to their release in anticipated burning. Of course, a warning could suffice to warn extremists who show due care in selecting flags to burn. See Comment j to the Restatement (Second) of Torts 402A (“Where warning is given, the seller may reasonably assume that it will be read and heeded; and a product bearing such a warning, which is safe for use if it is followed, is not in defective condition, nor is it unreasonably dangerous.” ). However, as noted in Lewis v. Am. Cyanamid Co., 682 A.2d 724, 732 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. 1996):

If there is an objectively foreseeable likelihood that a product will be subject to misuse and that that misuse will endanger users despite appropriate warnings, then warnings alone will not satisfy the manufacturer’s duty. In addition to providing warnings, the manufacturer must also take all other feasible measures required by a risk-utility analysis to make even anticipated misusers of the product reasonably safe.

Of course, I would not start looking for a contingency lawyer just yet. Even if you could get pass the jurisdictional problems and finding 12 people in voir dire without a bias against a flag burning religious fanatic, you would still have assumption of the risk problems for a man who participated in a despicable act.

Source: NY Post

33 thoughts on “Defective Product? Pakistani Protester Dies After Inhaling Smoke From Burning American Flag”

  1. Ismail died at Mayo Hospital a day after attending the protest and flag burning. His associates said that he immediately felt ill after inhaling the smoke from the burning flag.

    Now here is a provocative thought for torts. The Supreme Court has said that flag burning is protected speech and has long been a common expression of protest. See Texas v. Johnson
    ===================================
    I’m not from Texas.

  2. Mespo727272
    Not sure. I think Muslims believe they are supposed to kill Homosexuals don’t they? Most of what I can find on the net says so. Seems they would love Chick Fillet since chickens don’t have cloven hooves

  3. Pat:

    “Does anyone think our nation should apologize for this?”

    ********************

    Nope. But I wonder how Muslims must see us when they read that Chik-Fill-A had it biggest day when the rallying cry went up for eating at their restaurant as a means of bashing gay marriage? Wonder if they thought all of America was a homophobic band of Christian zealots based simply on the actions of a relative few?

    Sauce for the goose? No one likes violent religious zealots and branding everyone in a society for the actions of a few of them is dead wrong.

    Wouldn’t you agree?

  6. “Abdullah Ismail, died after reportedly inhaling smoke from a burning American flag in Lahore.”

    ” reportedly inhaling” … I can’t go there then … “reportedly” is a code word for take this and run with it media lackeys.

    The media are passing around videos and urging their twinnies to keep the heat up, keep Americans confused.

    An example is the federal judge in NY striking down the indefinite detention law, and the U.S. fighting the Afghan judges because those judges, like the NY federal judge, say indefinite detention without due process is something pigs do:

    The US is currently attempting to turn over to the Afghan government control of the lawless prison system the US has long maintained in Bagram and other parts of that country. But that effort is running into a serious problem: namely, the US wants the prisoners to remain there in cages without charges, but the Afghans are insisting that indefinite detention violates their belief in due process. From an Associated Press article Monday headlined “Afghans reject US-favored administrative detention”:

    “An Afghan judicial panel ruled Monday that administrative detention violates Afghan law, potentially thwarting a US plan to hand over Afghan detainees that American officials believe should continue to be held without a trial.

    “President Hamid Karzai’s office announced in a statement that a top-level judicial panel met earlier in the day and decided that the detention of Afghan citizens without a court trial ‘has not been foreseen in Afghan laws’ and therefore could not be used.

    “The US government has long held Afghans captured in operations inside the country without trial, arguing that they are enemy combatants and therefore can be detained for as long as their release might pose a danger to the international coalition …

    “A US official confirmed that the transfer of detainees had paused because of the dispute.”

    Is that not amazing? On the very same day that the Obama DOJ fights vigorously in US courts for the right to imprison people without charges, the Afghan government fights just as vigorously for basic due process.

    (Glenn Greenwald, Guardian, Common Dreams; emphasis added). These Pakistanis better do something fast or that due process thingy could spread to their nation.

    Drones and poison flags already have.

  8. nick spinelli-

    I should have credited EEO Irish, whose comment made me laugh out loud, for the “Big Lebowski” reference. I just watched the movie the other night and EEO’s comment reminded me of the Cowboy Stranger at the bowling alley.

  12. In one routine long ago, Woody Allen claimed to have tattooed on his chest “Do Not Fold, Spindle, or Mutilate.”
    Good for a laugh then, a court case today?

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