On Liability

Two tragedies recently occurred and have been covered extensively in the news here. First, a mother with 5 children in her car drove the wrong way down the Taconic Parkway in Long Island and slammed head on into an SUV carrying three adult males. Only one five year old child survived. Though the family and friends insist that she must have had a medical issue that caused her to become disoriented and confused, the autopsy found the equivalent of 10 shots of vodka in her blood (a 0.19 blood-alcohol content) and more unprocessed in her stomach, as well as the key ingredient in marajuana in her system. Second, a lonely, depressed and psychotic man entered a Pittsburgh aerobics class and opened fire, killing three women, wounding nine and then killing himself. He detailed his plans to commit such a murder in his personal blog and even listed his date of death.

Now that the initial shock and sorrow has worn off, everyone is asking who is liable? In both cases, the person responsible for the incidents are deceased. The cannot be held liable because they are no longer alive. So, of course, everyone wants to know who else can be held accountable. Who else can be taken to task.

In the case of the drunk mother on the parkway, they're looking at the husband and brother, who both claim that the most the mother drank was a partial glass of wine now and again in social situations. But the next of kin of the men in the SUV want to know if they could possibly have been aware that she was a closet drunk. And if they did know, then they should somehow have known that she would be drinking and driving on that particular day and they should have stopped it. And therefor, they are liable for the her actions.

In the case of the gunman, police are trying to find out if anyone read his blog and if so, why they didn't come forward and alert the authorities. As if, among all of the self-indulgent ramblings of the blogosphere, someone would have seen his rantings and immediately thought, "uh, oh, this guy might go off at any moment. better tell someone."

It seems to me that in both cases, people are looking to pin blame where none can be pinned. Everyone always wants to know why something wasn't uncovered prior to these tragedies. How do teachers miss the physical abuse of a child? How does a husband not know about his wife's tippling? How do co-workers not sense the dark side of an employee? How can neighbors not have seen a murder/suicide coming?

So I ask you, do you know all of your spouse's actions throughout the day? When he/she goes off to work, do you know what goes on in his/her car? Do you know what kinds of interactions occur in the privacy of his/her office? Do you see what goes on in the seclusin of the bathroom? Or on guys/girls night out?

How well do you really know your coworkers? Your neighbors? Do you know much about their personal thoughts and dreams or do you just know the names of their kids and spouse?

We're human. We form very close attachments with a select few people. We form loose attachments with a handful of others and everyone else is on the periphery of our sphere of relationships. And even the select few very close relationships are subject to our personal perceptions and biases. We see what we want to see. We see what others will let us see. We are not all-knowing creatures; and though sometimes we take less time to observe than we ought, rarely do we see things that others are intent on hiding.

Sometimes, there is no one to blame.