"Most people who are sympathetic to the free market would endorse the above sentiments, but with one nagging concern: How does the airline take into account the huge damages imposed onothers if one of its planes is hijacked?
One possibility is that the legal system would hold airlines strictly accountable for such property damage, and that the airlines would need to purchase massive insurance policies before obtaining permission to send giant steel containers full of jet fuel hurtling over skyscrapers and shopping malls."
I don’t get this. From my perspective if a terrorist hijacks an airline and crashes it into a building, this is the same as someone stealing my gun and committing murder. In both cases only the person who committed the crime is liable. You can’t hold property owners liable for actions committed by someone who steals their property.
It may be that Murphy is trying to make the case that airlines would need to get permission from the owners of buildings before flying overhead, and the building owners would only grant such permission if the airline was heavily insured. But the building owners don’t own the airspace above their buildings, in and around the immediate premises, yes, but not 30,000 ft above the building.
Does anyone else see fault in this line of reasoning? To me the possibility of a terrorist hijacking a plane would fall under Rothbard’s “The Proper Burden of Risk”.
No. I don’t see a fault in his reasoning. Consumers may, and I think will, hold airliners accountable and fully liable to any property damage or injury inflicted upon them during a flight. It is no different then getting food poisoning in a restaurant or being a victim of medical malpractice. It matters not that the damage or injury was caused by a 3rd party. Consumers can still hold you responsible for not taking adequate precautions or safety measures. So if you’re talking about terrorists threats, then airliners have to provide for security measures, if consumers demand it. And when they fail, they can be held accountable through tort litigation.
It’s a totally false analogy. It’s not worth responding to.
I’ll just say that there is no objective way to determine exactly how such stuff would play out in a free market. Most of these things would be resolved ahead of time by contractual agreements. So it’s perfectly possible that one party, say the consumer, would wave his rights to sue or to hold the other party liable to any damage or injury in such and such a case. It’s just reasonable to assume that consumers may demand such liability, just like they usually demand a reasonable return policy when they go shopping.
This is totally different. The reason a restaurant owner is held liable for poisoned food is because the restaurant marketed the food as normal/unpoisoned which prompted the customer to buy it. The customer would not have bought the food if he new the truth. This is a type of fraud. Concealing this fact may not have been intentional, but there is still negligence.
And to say someone can hold you liable for not taking adequate safety measures…so if someone burglarizes my house, steals my gun and commits murder with it…I can be held liable for not doing enough to prevent my gun from being stolen? no of course not.
the only way an airline could be held liable for a hijacking is if it is written into the contract as a precondition of consumer’s buying the ticket. But there is not contract with the owner of the building the plane smashes into.
To me too it would seem far-fetched a claim to make. But pleas ekeep in mid two things:
As far as I know, English common law will hold you accountable to the extent you have been negligent. In our days, it might mean that if the airline failed to inspect properly its passengers, or have an armored cockpit door, of if the pilot was untrained on how to handle the situation, or if there was no guard on board, the airline might be held accountable due to negligence (I do not agree, but that’s how it runs).
Deep pockets theory: sue whoever has the more money, no matter how tenuous his connection to fault. The poor Saudi highjacker might have 50 bucks all in all, it would make little sense to sue him.