Bizarre, Torts

A Bridge Too Far: Wisconsin Woman Rides Into Gap Of Rising Bridge After Evading Flashing Barriers

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In what may be the clearest example of assumption of risk in torts, a 37-year-old Menasha, Wisconsin woman rode around flashing barriers on a bridge to try to make it across before it was open for river traffic.  She did not make it.

She reportedly suffered only facial injuries which shows far more luck than sense.

Justice Frankfurter once described the term “assumption of risk” as a term “undiscriminatingly used to express different and sometimes contradictory ideas.”  He complained that its uncritical use “bedevils the law.” Tiller v. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. 318 U.S. 54 (1943). This would not be one of those cases.

In torts, assumption of the risk can be either implied or express so long as you (1) knew of the risk of injury and (2) voluntary took on that danger in your actions.  Evading flashing barriers and riding on to a bridge in the process of being raised would easily meet any interpretation of that common law defense.

53 thoughts on “A Bridge Too Far: Wisconsin Woman Rides Into Gap Of Rising Bridge After Evading Flashing Barriers”

  1. Seriously? President Trump should “trust”:

    Rosenstein, Mueller, Comey, McCabe, Strozk, Page, Kadzic, Yates, Baker, Bruce Ohr, Nellie Ohr, Steele, Simpson, Hillary, Huma, Lynch, Brennan, Clapper, Kerry, Stefan “The Walrus” Halper, Mifsud, Power, Farkas, Rice, Obama et al.?

    Liberals and RINOs have gone completely insane.

    President Trump should treat these anti-American, anti-Constitutional traitors to one-way trips to the guillotines.

    2. Obama was the ineligible president, why didn’t he stop Russian “meddling?”

      Comey was the FBI Director, why didn’t he inform and protect the Trump campaign and America from “meddling?”

      Oh, and where the —- is that DNC server?

      Seriously? Liberals are completely irrational as they pursue their distraction campaign

      The facts and truth don’t matter anymore, right?

      Are the incoherent and hysterical liberals fooling you?

      Obama is getting worried and desperate.

      What happens when Obama’s machinations and colossal abuse of power are revealed?

      All roads lead to Obama.

          1. Yes, I want a coup against Trump. He’s a stooge for Putin!!! And yesterday Trump essentially told the world that he’s a stooge.

            1. well, you never know what comes out of that bottle once it’s uncorked. keep that in mind.

              1. Kurtz, I agree. And that’s what frightens me. Trump’s continued presence in the White House could give rise to leftist militants. Then we’ll be faced with the choice of Putin’s stooge or ‘genuine’ communists! The point is that ‘radicals give rise to radicals of every stripe’. Because once the norms are lost lunacy is normal.

    1. Comey says that Crowdstrike gave it all to the FBI. Crowdstrike promises, they did, really!

      apparently it was 140 different servers including cloud servers. a hassle to collect evidence on and supposedly the DNC was the victim that’s the excuse for taking their word for it.

      and yet
      the matter was important enough to disrupt the highest level diplomatic meeting imaginable by nuclear powers, but not important enough to go image the servers physically, that’s the bottom line no matter how the spin it

  3. This cycling-wacko liberal was undergoing a psychotic break; a frenzy looking for Russian “collusion.”

    Her illegal investigation of “malicious prosecution” crashed and she sustained injuries from which she will never fully recover.

    1. What we saw yesterday from Trump was not diplomacy. He was getting his annual review from the boss. I mean, da boss.

      Now back into the bubble with you.

  5. How, uh, odd that there is no story on this blog today about the press conference yesterday. Especially because the president gave us live, on tape evidence of collusion and cooperation with Putin. The argument that there is and was no collusion is now in the crapper. Good day, comrades.

      2. I believe in diplomacy, lets start with that stated as a fact. What I have a problem is… well lets put it this way: I’m a Yankees guy and I have no problem talking trash about the Mets or Red Sox but when I’m in another country we are all Americans, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to trash talk my fellow citizens with a foreigner. That’s what I find reprehensible about this press conference and Trump’s responses, when you’re in someone else’s house don’t trash talk your own, just like you wouldn’t let them trash talk your family. Grow a pair and have more respect for where you’re from.

        1. that’s a legitimate point of view. however, these are exceptional circumstances and the former head of the intelligence community former CIA chief Brenner has a hard on for Trump and has encouraged undermining, insubordination, and pretty much everything short of coup d’etat against him and so I don’t blame Trump one bit for poking some of the war pigs in the eye

    2. Yesterday Turley picked the worst possible moment to poo-poo the Mueller Probe. He even used that old woodcut of the Salem Witch Trials as an illustration. Common sense should have told him to wait for Trump to leave Finland first before running that column.

  6. Once again, Trump screws up so badly that we need new superlatives to describe the behavior, and once again, Jon ignores the 800-lb. gorilla and writes about some stupid conduct by some individual.

    1. Yes. One might expect that a lawyer who thought of himself of a patriot would burn the midnight oil to write about Trump’s behavior yesterday. Maybe Dershowitz has a comment somewhere – HAHAHA.

      1. Dershovitz said a month or two ago EXACTLY WHAT PROVISION OF THE US CODE IS “COLLUSION”? a great question nobody answered.

        1. It’s not a legal term. It’s become a popular term so I use it casually and carelessly, as do many. I’m sure Mr. Mueller knows the proper legal terms and will apply them judiciously.

    2. Im sure prof turley considers whether or not you approve prior to his selection of topics
      he only serves to provide you with a platform for your ranting and raving

    3. It’s JT’s blog, so he gets to pick the topics. You are free to start your own blog if you would rather discuss something else.

    4. “we need new superlatives to describe the behavior”
      ~+~
      You could just say President Trump is a billion times more of a traitor than Benedict Arnold, since you never resort to hyperbole in your assertions.

  7. The amount of people that stupid is not low.. Ask any traffic flagger. In the Seattle area it’s at least a once a day occurrence.

    Remember the baseball player who commented on blondes? The insurance statistics showed that 18-21 or younger, female, blonde, car painted red were the most dangerous ones to watch out for when working construction projects and set their rates accordingly. But PC took control over common sense and factual statistics. The ball player was John Rocker If memory serves.

    1. I find this hard to believe. How would an insurance co. know an applicant’s hair color? I applied online and have never met my agent in person. Are females required to appear for hair color inspection? Or do insurance companies assume hair color and set rates based on one’s name? In other words, all females with Germanic or Scandinavian surnames are assumed to be blonde and are assessed higher rates? What about bottle blondes? I read a stat once that approx. 80% of blondes are not natural blondes. I’ve worked with a few women who change their hair color on a seemingly weekly basis. They dye it a different color every weekend. Do their insurance rates adjust accordingly? And BTW, when I was in college I studied in the Engineering Library. Just a casual observation, but one that held true over 4 years, was the unusually high number of seemingly natural blonds/blondes (based on skin tone and eye color) who were studying engineering. Virtually every female engineering student I saw was either Asian or natural blonde. And to a lesser degree, but still an unusually high % of the white male engineering students were blonds. So maybe German/Scandinavian peoples are more oriented towards engineering than other whites. I don’t know. But these young women were certainly not the stereotype of the bottle blonde ditz!

  8. Was she planning on leaping over the lip of the bridge, ala Evel Knievel?

  9. I know Menasha Wisconsin. It’s a very hard-drinking town about 30 miles south of Green Bay. This woman was quite likely under the influence.

    1. I’ve heard that before about Wisconsin, as well as that their drunk driving laws are permissive. What is it about Wisconsin that creates that culture?

  10. JT is your bridge to far story a metaphor for yesterdays national embarrassment?

      1. Why do people keep dragging Hillary into the conversation, in order to rationalize or explain or condone Trump’s actions? Is she just a convenient pinata ?

    2. Ah, maybe THAT’S what he was doing posting this story. Metaphors are great!

  12. AZ has a “stupid driver” law. If you avoid the barriers you pay for all the damages incurred to rescue you. If the barriers are not up yet, the state pays. 😉

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