It just seems so backwards that making a concrete mailbox can get you sued by a jerk that intentionally drove into it. I can understand banning pitfalls and other actual traps, but why passive defensive deterrents? After all, it’s not like a bystander accidentally wandering onto your property is going to be injured by a random bolder you placed between your garden and the street.
(Edit): It seems I had a fundamental misunderstanding of US law. Thanks for indulging my curiosity!
As others have said, the mailbox and booby-trap laws aren’t the same thing.
Setting aside basic morality for a second, and strictly from a societal organizational perspective of which is the purpose of law, they’re incompatible with the reality of society.
For starters, there is literally nowhere you can put one that society has agreed is off limits in all circumstances forever, which is important because the nature of a trap is that they can survive longer than whoever set it.
Consider your neighbor witnesses you clutch your chest and collapse in your home so they call 911, and the first responders get blasted by a tripwire shotgun. Consider you get hit by a car and die, and your next of kin come to gather your belongings and meet the same fate. Consider you booby trap a basement closet, get dimentia, and your homecare worker gets blasted because you forgot you even did that when you were young and insane rather than merely old and demented.
By nature of a booby trap, you can’t foresee who will trip it or why. You’ve surrendered contextual judgement. It strictly CAN NOT be proportional.
That’s a very good point that I hadn’t considered. Thank you!
What if the booby trap had AI though?
(I’m joking please don’t hurt me)
AI you say? Here’s 69 million dollars. Make it happen!
Well said.
Here’s what our actual laws against booby traps entail: “A booby trap may be defined as any concealed or camouflaged device designed to cause bodily injury when triggered by any action of a person making contact with the device. This term includes guns, ammunition, or explosive devices attached to trip wires or other triggering mechanisms, sharpened stakes, nails, spikes, electrical devices, lines or wires with hooks attached, and devices for the production of toxic fumes or gases.” https://definitions.uslegal.com/b/booby-traps/
So yeah, actual booby traps are illegal, but a concrete mailbox is not necessarily a booby trap. A lawsuit arguing a concrete mailbox is a booby trap is an attempt to classify it as booby trap, which means it is not currently classified as one.
Thanks for the information!
Historically these laws exist because US law is based on English common law. I’d bet a Loonie that they exist in Canada as well for the same historical reason. If you live in a former British colony, it may be worth your time to get a basic understanding of common law.
- Duty Owed Trespassers (emphasis mine):
A landowner has no duty to keep premises in a safe condition for the benefit of trespassers. An owner does not possess any duty to a trespasser under the traditional common law view except to abstain from willful or wanton misconduct or entrapment.
- Duty Owed Trespassers (emphasis mine):
My understanding is that booby traps, like landmines, harm indiscriminately. i.e. they harm whoever trips them and not a particular target. And they persist until triggered. So in effect you have a time and target independent death lottery.
