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THE LAW IS A ASS for 07/03/2001
DOCKET ENTRY
"The Law is a Ass" Installment # 102
Originally written as installment # 91 and published in Comics Buyer's Guide issue # 677, November 7, 1986 issue
Occasionally I don't have a specific story or legal scene to write about, but owe a column or simply want the money that writing the column will earn. At such times, I pull out one of my general topics. These are the topics that don't speak to a specific story but answer more general questions about what life in the real world would be like, if we really had super-heroes.
In this installment, I answer the question: Who pays. Or, to put it another way, are you in good hands with All-Star?
******
"The Law is a Ass"
Installment # 102
by
Bob Ingersoll
As a matter of ancillary interest in our column of last time, I mentioned that the presence or absence of super heroes in a city could well have an affect on whether or not someone moved into said city. I wanted to go into this more fully today. (Good grief! First continued columns, now cross-over columns. Pretty soon, I'm going to have to simplify the continuity of the "Law Is a Ass" Multiverse.)
If you were offered a new job in Metropolis, would you view the presence of Superman as an asset or a liability? On the one hand Superman would, arguably, keep the crime rate low. I say arguably, because it seems that super-heroes have an unnatural ability to attract super-villains. No sooner does a super-hero show up in a city than every super-villain within a two-hundred mile radius decides that city is ripe for picking and foolishly goes there despite knowing that the super-hero is there. Yes, I said "foolish." Maybe I'm a gutless wimp who hates a challenge, but if I were a super-villain, I'd seriously consider establishing Provo, Utah as my base of operation. I'd rather go up against Donny and Marie than Superman or Batman any day.
On the other hand, if you lived in Metropolis you'd run the certain risk that your house or business or car or prize lhasa apso would be demolished, while Superman fought Arthur Dobbins a.k.a. Cuisine Art, the Gourmet of Greed. Just look at the destruction that Superman and Bizarro caused in Man of Steel # 5. Better yet look at Superman # 1, (it still seems so strange: I bought Superman # 1 for cover price); Superman and Metallo demolish an entire bank building. If memory serves, Thing/Hulk battles tend to level city blocks. And then there was what happened to the entire planet Earth in the Legion of Super-Heroes. You just don't get much more destructive than blowing up the whole planet real good. Such super powered urban renewal prompted Harlan Ellison to ask me, who pays? When Superman and Metallo flatten a building, who pays to rebuild it? When Thing rips out a water main, so he can turn Absorbing Man into a harmless puddle, who pays to clean up the water, restore the pipe, and repave the street? When the Blue Beetle and the Purple Pile Driver throw the overalls into Mrs. Murphy's chowder, who pays to dry clean the stains out of her Levis(not to mention the psychiatrist's bills for the mental anguish caused by her resulting loss in social position)?
We do.
Of course the answer's not as simple as that. But you've got to admit, as a literary hook it's better than "I don't know."
Some heroes repair their own damage. We've seen Superman return to a battle and clean up after himself. I presume he makes a regular habit of it. John Stewart recently power ringed a window back together, so the Green Lantern Corps is aware of its responsibilities. But don't count on this much longer. The Electricians', Plumbers', and Construction Workers' unions got TROs forbidding this non-union labor from taking their jobs.
Superman could squeeze, or the Green Lantern Corps synthesize, diamonds to pay for repairs. However, this solution would ultimately fail as well. Diamonds, or any precious metal or gem, are precious, because they're rare. If Superman made enough diamonds to pay for all the damage his fights have caused, they'd be as more common--and less valuable--than paper clips.
Another solution is to have a rich benefactor, like Reed Richards or Tony Stark, foot the repair bills. Many's the time we've heard (Seen? Read?) Cap say, "Send the bill to Tony Stark." Ultimately, this solution, too, must fail. Reed's and Tony's financial resources are not inexhaustible. Given the extensive damage caused by a typical FF or Avengers slug fest; the fact that for all of these fights to have occurred in only seven years, they must be bi-weekly; and the average cost of building buildings--not to mention their other financial obligations such as electric bills the size of the national debt--Reed and Tony must be tapped out by now.
The heros could be sued by the property owners whose property was damaged. Felicity Smoak tried to sue Firestorm. (Yes, I still remember that. No one ever forgets his first blind date, either.) Anyone who accidentally or intentionally damages another's property is liable in civil court to pay for repairs. But this solution won't work.
Nine times out of ten, the hero could successfully defend under the Doctrine of Sudden Emergency. This common law defense to negligence, indemnifies a person who suddenly finds himself in a life-threatening emergency and who, therefore, lacks sufficient time to consider all of the consequences of his acts which alleviate said emergency, and deems him not liable for any damage caused by said alleviation. In other words, if you're trying to keep Galactus from eating the planet, no one can sue you for ripping a broadcast antenna off the top of the Empire State Building and using it as a bat. Granted you could have gotten rid of the Big G easier and cheaper by reminding him, that he was breaking his promise to stay away from Earth, again, but no one can fault you for not thinking of that during the stress of the emergency. On that tenth time, when the hero is fighting some schlub who no reasonable man could consider an emergency, like Kite-Man, there won't be enough damage to care about.
The property owners could sue the villains. As the villains' acts created the emergency in the first place, they could not use the Doctrine of Sudden Emergency to defend themselves. This plan has about as much chance of success as starting up yet another new, rival football league--as if, after the USFL, anyone would be so foolish as to try that again!
If the super-villain has been caught, he's going to end up in jail or a loony bin. Either way, he's not going to be working anymore. He won't have any assets to justify suing him in the first place. To date only the IRS has mastered the technique for extracting hemoglobin from granite.
If the villain was fighting the X-Men, so wasn't caught--let's face it, when was the last time the X-Men actually caught one of their villain?-- how is the property owner going to get said villain into court to sue? Put an ad in the paper?
If the property owner gets a default judgment, because the villain didn't appear in court to defend himself, the owner is still without a remedy. He's got a judgment against an unknown person with hidden assets. I wish him lots of luck trying to enforce his judgment.
Even if the property owner does find the villain and his secret base, so can put a lien on the base's equipment; chances are the equipment was stolen and the furniture bought with ill-gotten gains. In that case, the original property owner, whose property was stolen, has a prior and superior claim to the assets than does our poor property owner. No matter how you look at it, the property owner who sues the super-villain for reparations stands to earn about as much as a pickpocket in a nudist colony.
Finally, there is insurance. Several recent comics have referred to so-called "super-hero insurance." Presumably, this is some form of policy which underwrites damage from super powered punch-outs as opposed to a policy insuring the life of Deadman. Property owners file claims on their super-hero policy and get a piece of the rock to pay for repairing the damage to their own rocks. But from where does that piece of the rock come?
Insurance companies have to get the money to pay off these unending super-hero claims somewhere. The insurance companies could sue the heroes or villains. They won't have any more success that the property owners did, just bigger legal bills, because insurance companies tend to use large defense firms.
I'm afraid that leaves us with only one source from which insurance companies can raise the monies they require to indemnify their policy holders against super-powered property damage. Those of you who said premiums--large premiums that we, the policy holders, pay--go to the head of the class. Not to mention bankruptcy court, because that would be large premiums paid by us, the policy holders in all these insurance companies.
You see, ultimately we do pay for damage caused in super powered fights. I just said my earlier answer was too simple. I didn't say it was wrong.
BOB INGERSOLL
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