This is a hypothetical used in one of my law classes:
Alan owns a boat. Bo owns a dock. Alan is out sailing one day with his family when suddenly a storm develops (it was not a foreseeable storm). The storm puts Alan and his family (and well as his boat) in imminent danger. They decide that they need to dock immediately, and Bo's dock is the only one nearby. Bo comes outside and objects vehemently, even though he realizes that not allowing them to dock could result in their serious harm and even death. Alan does it anyway and they wait out the storm, but his boat damages Bo's dock. Bo takes Alan to court. What should be the proper recourse for the court? What if there is no damage to the dock?
Dealing with lifeboat scenarios. This Week in Liberty, Episode 2.
First the proper recourse for the court or any other government sponsored civil dispute resolution mechanism is to dissolve itself and allow entreprenuers to build for profit systems of arbitration that don't depend on judges or juries but on the confidence of the parties in the dispute to provide a judgement based upon true justice and getting restitution for the victim/s.
So along that line, Alan is responsible for any and all damages his boat caused to Bo's dock PLUS some amount of damages for using the dock without Bo's permission to do so. The only thing that would change had Bo not denied Allen permission would be the size of the damages. Had Bo given permissions to use his dock then the agreement between the two would have to specify who pays for which damages.
If Alan were to be dying of scurvy, and he weakly swam onto Bo's shore, do you think Alan should be liable for trespass? Basically, do you think there are any circumstances that property rights can be infringed upon in the name of saving life?
Sure, Alan would be liable for tresspass, but so what? It would be up to a rational dispute resolution system based up on societal conventions for virtue and morality to determine what to do. The arbitrator may determine that Alan owes an apology to Bo. Certainly Alan would be responsible for damaging any of Bo's property. Why is this so terrible? Man has been guided by societal convention for a much longer time frame than the lawlessness created through making millions of rules in a modern legal bureaucracy.
Certaily Bo would be penalized by the rest of society and maybe by the arbitrator if he protected his property from such a small infraction using violence or just did not help Alan.
Willy Truth:This is a hypothetical used in one of my law classes: Alan owns a boat. Bo owns a dock. Alan is out sailing one day with his family when suddenly a storm develops (it was not a foreseeable storm). The storm puts Alan and his family (and well as his boat) in imminent danger. They decide that they need to dock immediately, and Bo's dock is the only one nearby. Bo comes outside and objects vehemently, even though he realizes that not allowing them to dock could result in their serious harm and even death. Alan does it anyway and they wait out the storm, but his boat damages Bo's dock. Bo takes Alan to court. What should be the proper recourse for the court? What if there is no damage to the dock?
In terms of rights, I think Alan and his family trespassing on Bo's property gives Bo the right to trespass on their property to the same extent and for the same period of time. Alan's boat damaging Bo's dock also gives Bo the right to inflict "equivalent damage" against Alan's property. If Bo prefers to be paid compensation to the point where he agrees to give up these rights he's acquired, then so be it.
The keyboard is mightier than the gun.
Non parit potestas ipsius auctoritatem.
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