Tort law by Lane Hass

Facts of the case (negligence

lhass56635 — 2016-01-28 14:52:03 UTC

Jennifer Strange, a 28-year-old mother of three, died on January 12 after drinking almost two gallons of water while taking part in a giveaway contest sponsored by Sacramento's KDND-FM. The contest awarded a Nintendo console to the person who could avoid urinating (or vomiting) after drinking a large quantity of water.

defendant and plaintiff

lhass56635 — 2016-01-28 14:53:54 UTC

defendant: the defendant of this negligence case is the KDND-FM radio station who held this contest.

Plaintiff: the plaintiff is Jennifer Strange, a contestant in the contest who died from water intoxication.

4 elements of negligence

lhass56635 — 2016-01-28 14:56:38 UTC

duty of care: a reasonable person would not have held a contest in which you had to drink so much water and not be able to get it out of your system.

breach of duty: KDND-FM radio stations held a contest where contestants had to drink a lot of water and not get it out of their system for a reward of a Nintendo console.

causation: if the contest wasn't something dangerous, Jennifer wouldn't have died. Since it should be known that drinking a lot of water and not getting anything out of you can be dangerous, this was a foreseeable outcome of the contest.

Damages: Jennifer the contest died of water intoxication.

Damages awarded

lhass56635 — 2016-01-28 15:09:04 UTC

the jury awarded the survivors of Jennifer Strange the sum of $16,577,118 in monetary damages. I think this is more than fair since the radio station should have known how dangerous this could be yet still held the contest. Because of the contest Jennifer died and there is no amount of money that in my opinion can make up for that.