Here’s the story: a 15 year old high school kid in Canada makes a video of himself reenacting a Star Wars light saber fight. He leaves the tape on a shelf at the schools video lab and another student finds it and shares it with another student. The second student digitizes it and emails it to some more kids. A third kid decides to host the video on his website and then the video goes viral. Life becomes miserable at school for light saber boy when all the teasing starts.
Okay, I feel bad for the kid but according to this article he and his parents sued the families of the three kids responsible for the video getting out and the parents of the three boys ended up settling the lawsuit for an undisclosed amount. Huh?
If I understand this correctly the kid made a video using the school’s equipment, left the tape on a shelf at the school (expectation of privacy?) and then when some boys found the tape and put it on the internet his family sued the parents of the kids who found the tape and put it on the internet. According to the article the three boys are accused of bullying, but aren’t all the kids that teased saber-boy the real bullies? Why not sue them all?
The article also talks about whether any of the parents had liability insurance and how much money they had available for settlement. Who the heck carries liability insurance for instances like this? Am I missing a potential business opportunity here? Insurance against over-litigious parents might be a huge growth industry:)
Discover more from Befuddled
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Befuddled 
Most homeowners’ policies include some liability insurance, but that’s for things like someone tripping on your unrepaired front step and breaking something. I doubt it would cover this.
According to a legal seminar we had at the paper some years back, “invasion of privacy” for publication of factual material about someone hasn’t been recognized as a tort claim in North Carolina since, like, 1934. Good.
Thanks for the info. Now I can sleep a little easier especially knowing what my kids are capable of.
Until recently I counted weather and exchange rate as good reasons to not move north of the border. The exchange rate thing ain’t what it once was but now I have another reason to add to the list.