Category Archives: labor law

Law and the Multiverse Holiday Special – Labor Day Edition

Posted on September 5, 2011 by | 8 comments

Today is Labor Day in the United States, a holiday that celebrates workers and the labor movement (it also celebrates hamburgers, if most people’s Labor Day activities are anything to go by).  Unionization doesn’t make sense for most superheroes (they work for free, after all), but there are some exceptions.  For example, in some continuities the agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. are basically federal employees, and many federal employees are union members.  Although some superheroes who work for S.H.I.E.L.D. / the Avengers don’t have much use for a union (e.g. Tony Stark is independently wealthy and Thor is a god), folks like Nick Fury are regular employees for whom union benefits would be pretty appealing, and there are countless non-superhero employees working in the background.

So could S.H.I.E.L.D. unionize?  Maybe, maybe not.

Federal employee unions are governed by the Federal Labor Relations Act (whereas most unions are governed by the National Labor Relations Act).  However, the FLRA specifically excludes certain agencies from coverage, including the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, and the Secret Service.  The exclusion of these law enforcement and espionage agencies suggests that S.H.I.E.L.D. might be excluded in the Marvel Universe.  On the other hand, however, some other law enforcement and defense agencies are unionized or in the process of unionizing, including the Transportation Security Administration, the National Park Service, the Border Patrol, the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, and the Department of Defense (the civilian workers, not the armed forces, which are forbidden from unionizing by 10 USC 976).  So it’s possible that S.H.I.E.L.D. employees could unionize.

In general the FLRA works like the NLRA, although federal unions cannot create “union shops” in which employees are required to join the union in order to work for the agency.  They also cannot strike.  Thus, S.H.I.E.L.D. employees could always choose not to join the union.  The benefits of a union formed under the FLRA include collective bargaining rights, the right to file grievances, and the right to protection from unfair labor practices.  Like most unions it would probably be more concerned with working conditions and compensation for regular workers than, say, hazard pay for fighting Kang the Conqueror.

From a comic book writer’s perspective it’s unfortunate that federal employee unions can’t go on strike.  Otherwise it might lead to some pretty funny scenarios.  Can you imagine the Avengers forming a picket line or the government bringing in some B-list superhero scabs?

Update: Over at Abnormal Use they have a class Justice League cover featuring striking superheroes.

8 Comments

Posted in labor law

Manhunter, Volume 5

Posted on August 3, 2011 by | 6 comments

First off we’d like to announce the winner of our giveaway of a copy of volumes 1-5 of the Marc Andreyko run of Manhunter, as described in our previous post in this series.  Thank you to everyone who entered.  We got a tremendous response from our readers for the giveaway, so we’ll definitely run another one soon.  Anyway, without further ado: congratulations to our winner: Michael Burstein!

Now, on to volume 5 of Manhunter.  The main story arc in this volume involves a multi-national pharmaceutical/biotech/medical device company, Vesetech, with a plant in El Paso, Texas.  Many of the workers at the plant are Mexican women who live in Ciudad Juárez across the border.  While investigating the disappearances of a large number of women in the area, Kate Spencer discovers that Vesetech was kidnapping the women and using them in unethical medical experiments.  After busting up the supervillain-led research team, Spencer announces at a press conference that she is leading a class action lawsuit against the company on behalf of the former employees.  This leads to a few questions.

I. Federal Labor Laws

Kate says that Vesetech was paying the women ‘pennies,’ suggesting a violation of minimum wage laws.  For violations of the federal minimum wage (the same as the minimum wage in Texas), employees can sue for both back wages and an equal amount as liquidated damages under 29 U.S.C. 216(b).  However, violations of the federal minimum wage law are frequently enforced by the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour division, which is empowered to sue on the employee’s behalf.  If the Department of Labor steps in then that terminates the employee’s right to sue on their own behalf.  So there’s a very good chance that part of the suit could be dismissed.  But there would still be the injuries suffered by the women who were experimented on.

II. Class Actions and Federal Jurisdiction

Kate announces that she will represent the women in a class action lawsuit, but things aren’t that simple.  A class must be certified by a judge, and the plaintiffs in this case may not meet the requirements.  For simplicity we’ll assume that the case would be brought in federal court.  Bringing a case in federal court requires (among other things) that the court have subject matter jurisdiction.  That is, it must be the kind of case that the federal courts can address, since the federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction.

In brief, federal courts can get subject matter jurisdiction three ways: the Arising Under clause, diversity of citizenship, and supplemental jurisdiction.  The Arising Under clause grants jurisdiction in cases involving a federal question.  Diversity of citizenship applies when no plaintiff is a citizen of the same state as any defendant and the amount in controversy is at least $75,000.  Supplemental jurisdiction allows state law issues to tag along when they are related to another claim or controversy that the court had jurisdiction over.

In this case, federal jurisdiction seems likely since the plaintiffs are all Mexican citizens while the defendant is a US corporation, giving a federal court jurisdiction under diversity of citizenship. (legal pedant note: it is broadly assumed that this is so, but the Supreme Court has indicated in dictum that a foreign plaintiff may not claim federal jurisdiction under diversity of citizenship.  Verlinden BV v. Central Bank of Nigeria, 461 U.S. 480, 492 (1983).  It is not completely clear what the answer is in a case like this, with foreign plaintiffs and a US defendant.)

There may also be federal question jurisdiction (e.g. if the women sue for wages and the Department of Labor doesn’t step in).

In any case, federal class actions are governed by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23.  There are several requirements, but the biggest issue here is probably commonality: are there “questions of law or fact common to the class?”  The problem is that there are at least two groups of plaintiffs: women who were paid below minimum wage and the women who were experimented on (or at least their estates).  Admittedly, members of the latter group may also be members of the former group, but the questions of law and fact are very different between the two groups.  It is possible that a federal court would consolidate the cases, but they would probably be brought as two separate suits.

But even that may not be enough.  Unless the women were subjected to at least broadly similar mistreatment at the hands of Vesetech’s scientists then a class action may not be the best way to resolve their claims.  A court could decide that the women’s injuries were too unique to be treated as a class.

III. The Measure of Damages

During the press conference Kate explains that data gleaned from Vesetech’s human experiments may have been used to develop a range of highly profitable and widely-used products.  Kate says that this is “fruit of the poisonous tree” (a rather terrible mis-use of a legal phrase).  Anyway, it is implied that this has something to do with the women’s case.  Ordinarily the women’s damages would be what it took to compensate them (or their estates) for their injuries, plus likely punitive damages of up to 10 times the compensatory damages.  See State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Campbell, 538 U.S. 408 (2003) (holding that Due Process generally requires punitive damages be less than 10 times the compensatory damages).  The women would ordinarily not be entitled to any share of the ill-gotten gains derived from their suffering.

However, the equitable remedy of restitution may allow the women to recover some of those ill-gotten gains.  But as an equitable remedy restitution is discretionary, so a court may or may not impose it.

IV. Tort Claimants and Bankruptcy

The real bad news is that Vesetech is almost certainly going to be bankrupt in short order: all of its facilities around the world were raided, virtually every aspect of its business is suspect, and it is looking at massive criminal penalties.  What’s more, tort claims are general unsecured claims, aka “the back of the line” in bankruptcy.  So even if the women’s case is successful, they may ultimately receive nothing as secured creditors and the government take everything the corporation owns in liquidation.  Sad, but that’s the law for you.

That’s it for our series on this run of Manhunter.  Look for our next series on Batman: No Man’s Land!

6 Comments

Posted in civil procedure, labor law, torts

X-Men: First Class

Posted on June 6, 2011 by | 24 comments

There’s a new X-Men movie out, and it’s actually pretty great. But you don’t come here for detailed discussions about the merits of the movie as a movie or about the fidelity or creativity of the adaptation. No, you come here to read about the legal implications of the various plot devices. So let’s get down to it. Given the plot, most of what we’ve got here is going to be international law, with an added civil rights / employment law bonus. As always, we’ve got spoilers.

I. Nazi Gold

In his quest to find the Nazi “doctor” that killed his mother, Erik Lensherr used an ingot of Nazi gold as a pretense to get an appointment with a high-ranking Swiss banker. This has a certain realism to it, as a vast amount of Nazi gold disappeared into European banks by 1945, and much of it probably remains there. The banker comments that possessing such gold is illegal. He’s right. In September 1946, the United Kingdom, United States, and France formed the Tripartite Commission for the Restitution of Monetary Gold with the mandate to identify those persons or institutions with claims that gold had been looted from them by the Nazis and the goal of restoring that gold to its rightful owners. The Tripartite Commission was created as part of the Paris Peace Treaties which brought about the end of the war. The Commission’s task took a long time, and it was only dissolved in 1998 with something like 65% of the claimed gold returned. Congress addressed the issue with the “Holocaust Victims Redress Act, Pub. Law No. 105-158 in 1998. The Act basically authorizes the US representative to the Commission to dispose of what assets remained in the Commission’s possession at that time.

Still, there’s one little wrinkle. Lensherr, being a Jew and victim of the concentration camps, could in theory have a valid claim to the gold in question, which would make the legality of his possession of the ingot less clear. But as this issue was dealt with on a really high level, it’s doubtful that law enforcement would care much one way or the other. The Commission was mostly concerned with the gold possessed by sovereign governments, not individuals.

II. Acts of War

First, there’s the operation to nail Shaw when he meets with the Russian general. This is a CIA-directed op, with CIA agents on the ground, leading a group of what amounts to mercenaries—other than Moira and the other agent, it isn’t clear that anyone else involved was a federal agent—in attempting to infiltrate a sensitive military compound to assassinate a high value target. Several major wars have been sparked because of the assassination of a high-ranking official, so this is kind of a big deal. Granted, in most cases where a war follows an assassination, the actual death is a pretense for armed conflict really motivated by more serious underlying tensions, but this kind of thing is dramatic enough to push things over the edge.

But the appearance of the X-Men on the scene at the climax of the Cuban Missile Crisis? That might not be, because the government had not authorized them to do anything. They were not acting under anyone’s orders (or at least anyone with the authority to give those kinds of orders), and it’s far from clear that the CIA even knew what they were up to. So Professor X causing the Russians to fire on their own ship could plausibly have been disavowed by Washington as rogue agents acting without authority. The fact that the Russians had already ordered the ship to turn around means that they’d probably be willing to grasp at any excuse not to go to war, so this explanation may well have been accepted, whether Professor X was acting under orders or not.

Magneto springing Emma Frost from the CIA holding center wouldn’t count either, as he wasn’t acting on the authority of any sovereign entity. At the time, it probably would have been classified as a criminal act, because the government’s rush to classify everything it doesn’t like as “terrorism” did not really get its start until the events of 2001. But it is plausible that, if apprehended, he could have initially been charged with espionage. Granted, Magneto does not seem to have any particular interest in working with any human government, and his little trip into the facility did not appear to include the acquisition of any information. Still, he damaged a bunch of property and may have killed some agents at a highly classified facility, so the feds would be understandably upset about that. They might not be able to make a charge of espionage stick in the absence of any connection to a foreign power though: the Espionage Act generally requires that one transmit or intend to transmit something to someone. Acquiring classified information and doing nothing with it isn’t espionage.

III. Employment Discrimination

At one point in the film, Moira’s CIA boss states in a meeting that “there’s no place for a woman in the CIA.”  Today that kind of comment might well give rise to a discrimination claim, but what about in 1962?  As it turns out, an employer—even a government employer—could probably have gotten away with it because the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (specifically Title VII) had not been enacted yet.  Without those important Acts in place the courts were generally pretty tolerant of both de facto and de jure discrimination against women.  For example, it wasn’t until 1971 that the Supreme Court first struck down a state law on the basis that it discriminated on the basis of sex.  Reed v. Reed, 404 US 71 (1971).  And fully equal participation in jury service was not mandated until Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 U.S. 522 (1975).  So kudos to the writers for working in that accurate (if depressing) “sign of the times.”

IV. Conclusion

X-Men: First Class isn’t exactly a courtroom drama, but the legal issues that are there were treated pretty well.  We’re looking forward to the all-but-inevitable sequel.  In the mean time, check it out.  It’s a pretty good flick.

24 Comments

Posted in civil rights, international law, labor law, movies

She-Hulk # 2

Posted on April 11, 2011 by | 17 comments

We looked at She-Hulk # 1 last week. Moving on to issue # 2, She-Hulk is plaintiff’s counsel for Dan “Danger-Man” Jermain, given atomic powers as part of an industrial accident. Mr. Jermain wants to sue his former employer for “bodily injury,” despite the fact that the only effects seem to be that he is “larger, stronger, and more powerful.” Okay, he’s also capable of causing small nuclear explosions, but hey, it’s not like it’s going to hurt him any. Defense counsel points out the fact that one needs to stretch the definition of bodily injury way past the bounds of credulity to include imbuing someone with superpowers. She-Hulk thinks she can get around it by arguing that “Danger-Man” and “Dan Jermain” are actually two separate entities, and that the latter ceased to exist when the former came into being. When asked “Do you really think this will work?” she responds “I think I can sell it to a jury.”

There are a number of problems here, so let’s take a look.

I. Workers Compensation

First, whatever happened to workers’ compensation? The rise of the Industrial Era was accompanied by the rise of workplace injuries, as people started working around machines more often, sometimes incredibly dangerous ones. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it was commonplace for factory workers to lose fingers, even limbs, to exposed machinery. Legal reforms favoring labor began in the late nineteenth century, and by 1949, every state and the federal government had instituted a workers’ compensation regime.

Workers’ compensation operates by creating a system for compensating workers for workplace injuries regardless of fault. What this means is that if you are injured while serving your employer, you get paid the vast majority of the time, even if your employer was completely without fault. This may seem very favorable to the workers, so to even things out, i.e. to make sure that employers weren’t bankrupted every time someone broke an arm, compensation was limited in three ways.

First, compensation for injuries is computed based on actuarial tables created by state agencies rather than by juries. This rationalizes and limits compensation. Whereas a jury can award a basically arbitrary amount of money, workers’ compensation payouts are known ahead of time and are thus a lot easier to plan for and insure. Second, compensation is limited to purely economic damages, i.e. medical bills, lost wages, lost future earnings, etc. There is very little provision for non-economic damages like “pain and suffering,” which really drive up verdicts in liability cases. Third, workers’ compensation is an exclusive remedy, i.e. employees cannot choose to forgo participation in the workers’ compensation program and sue their employers. Workers’ compensation is their only way to recover. So employees benefit because they almost always get paid, even if the accident was their fault, and they usually get paid in a fraction of the amount of time they’d have to wait if they sued. But employers benefit because their costs are controlled and employees can’t turn around and sue them. Workers’ compensation coverage is mandatory in just about every state for just about every employee. There are, of course, certain exceptions, but a worker in an industrial plant working with radioactive materials, e.g. Dan Jermain, would definitely be covered.

So what happened to Roxxon’s workers’ compensation carrier? How is Jermain able to sue at all? Sure, GLK&H might act as plaintiff’s counsel in the workers’ compensation case (coverage can be disputed, leading to litigation, but this is much simpler than suing in open court), but workers’ compensation is largely limited to economic damages. Danger-Man is basically uninjured, and even if we want to go with She-Hulk’s argument and say that Dan Jermain is “dead,” (more on that in a minute), workers’ compensation only pays out a couple of hundred grand—at best—for wrongful death. Not $85 million, which is the settlement reached at the end of the issue.

Of course, the whole issue goes away if Jermain wasn’t an employee. If the writers had him be some random schmo who happened to get in a wreck with a Roxxon tanker truck, covering him in radioactive goo, he would not be covered by the workers’ compensation regime and thus would be free to sue like he does in the comic. Oh well.

II. Questions of Law v. Questions of Fact

Now we’re going to get really nit-picky. She-Hulk says that she thinks she can “sell” Dan Jermain’s death to a jury. Unfortunately, whether or not “Dan Jermain” legally died during the accident is probably not a question of fact. Nor is whether giving someone superpowers counts as “bodily injury”. These would be questions of law. The difference is, in part, who gets to answer such questions and the basis for answering them.

Questions of fact are answered by the finder of fact, generally the jury, though judges are the finders of fact in bench trials. Questions of fact are answered on the basis of the evidence. The questions of fact here would be things like “What are the nature and extent of Dan Jermain’s injuries?” “What caused those injuries?” “Did Roxxon’s negligence lead to Jermain’s injuries?” “Did Jermain’s?” She-Hulk would try to get these questions answered in her favor by investigating the scene of the accident, having experts evaluate Jermain’s condition, deposing witnesses, etc.

Questions of law are answered by the judge on the basis of the law alone. The questions of law here include “Do Jermain’s symptoms constitute ‘bodily injury’ under the law?” “Is ‘Danger-Man’ legally the same entity as Dan Jermain?” “Is Dan Jermain legally dead?” These questions would be answered by looking at existing legal precedent to see what it says about the definitions of “bodily injury” and “death,” and seeing if the facts, when interpreted in the light most favorable to Roxxon, can be made to fit the legal definitions she needs.

Here we’ve got some problems. “Bodily injury” is generally understood to be a bad thing. Federal law defines it as

(A) a cut, abrasion, bruise, burn, or disfigurement;
(B) physical pain;
(C) illness;
(D) impairment of the function of a bodily member, organ, or mental faculty; or
(E) any other injury to the body, no matter how temporary.

18 U.S.C. § 1365(h)(4)

Whether or not Danger-Man’s condition counts as any of those is going to be a question of law for the court. And it’s not entirely clear that it does. He hasn’t been cut, abraded, bruised, burned, or disfigured, at least not in any way shown in the comics. He doesn’t appear to be in any pain, nor to have experienced any as part of the process. Superpowers probably don’t constitute an “illness,” though there may be something there, especially if the powers can’t be controlled. He does not appear to be suffering any impairment of his bodily functions or mental faculties. And calling superpowers “injuries,” when they don’t fit into any of the other definitions, is a stretch, to say the least. Given that Jermain can do just about everything he could before the accident, and can do a lot more now, this is going to be a tough sell.

Though there is another claim that the authors seem to have forgotten: loss of consortium. This is a claim for loss of the affection and companionship of a family member, typically a spouse, and typically a particular kind of companionship, if you catch our meaning. Jermain seems to have been affected in a substantial way, here. Even sharing a bed with his wife is physically dangerous for her. That’s the kind of change in a relationship that a jury might well be willing to award damages for.

III: Conclusion

There was more legal meat in this one. Missing the difference between questions of law and questions of fact is understandable, though. That one even trips up experienced attorneys from time to time, as the two can blend into each other pretty easily (so-called ‘mixed questions of law and fact’). So we’ll give them a pass on that one. But missing the workers’ compensation angle was a pretty big mistake. Even most laymen are at least aware of workers’ compensation, even if they aren’t entirely aware of how it works.  Maybe we can chalk this one up to most comic book authors and illustrators rarely making use of workers’ compensation; comic book publishers are not exactly hotbeds of industrial accidents. Still, all they’d need to do is change a single panel, making the plaintiff a bystander instead of an employee, and the rest of the story is more-or-less okay.

17 Comments

Posted in labor law, torts

Superpowered Minors, Part Four

Posted on March 9, 2011 by | 29 comments

This is a continuation of our earlier series on superpowered minors.  The first three parts of the series dealt with the criminal, contract, and tort liability of young superheroes and supervillains.  Now we come to the legal issues facing the parents, legal guardians, and adult team members of those precocious crime-fighters and ne’er-do-wells, which many of our readers and commenters have asked about.

There are three major areas of concern.  First, child welfare laws.  Second, employment and child labor laws.  Third, vicarious liability for the minors’ crimes and torts.  We’ll look at the first two areas today and the third in a future post.

I. Is Robin a Victim of Child Endangerment?

All states have laws against child abuse, although the specifics vary.  In the case of superheroes we are not terribly concerned with laws against intentionally or willfully harming children.  See, e.g., Cal.Penal Code § 273d.  As far as we know, intentional child abuse by superhero parents and guardians is rare to non-existent.  Nor are we concerned with child superheroes who keep their activities a secret from their parents.  As long as those parents aren’t neglectful  or turning a blind eye, they’re probably in the clear.  Instead, we are concerned with child endangerment or indirect abuse.

Consider, for example, Cal.Penal Code § 273a(a): “Any person who, under circumstances or conditions likely to produce great bodily harm or death … willfully causes or permits [a] child to be placed in a situation where his or her person or health is endangered, shall be punished by imprisonment….”  Cal.Penal Code § 273(a)(b) covers the same thing except without the “great bodily harm or death” part, which makes it a misdemeanor.

Note that “likely to produce great bodily harm or death” does not mean “more likely than not.”  Instead, it means a substantial danger or a serious and well-founded risk. People v. Wilson, 138 Cal.App.4th 1197, 1204 (Cal. Ct. App. 2006).  So just because Batman and Robin usually escape without harm does not mean that great bodily harm or death is not likely for purposes of the law.

California courts have held that in cases of indirect abuse (i.e. where the child is not harmed by the caretaker directly) criminal negligence on the part of the caretaker is required.  People v. Valdez, 27 Cal.4th 778, 789-90 (2002).  California defines criminal negligence as “‘aggravated, culpable, gross, or reckless … conduct … [that is] such a departure from what would be the conduct of an ordinarily prudent or careful [person] under the same circumstances as to be incompatible with a proper regard for human life.”  Id. at 783.  So now we come to the crux of the issue: is taking Robin along to fight crime such a departure from the conduct of an ordinarily careful person under the same circumstances as to be incompatible with a proper regard for human life?  We think the answer may be “no” for two reasons.

The first reason is the crucial phrase “under the same circumstances.”  In the case of Batman and Robin, the circumstances are a highly trained, highly equipped, highly experienced guardian working with a highly trained, highly equipped, and (eventually) highly experienced assistant.  Fighting crime under those circumstances does not seem incompatible with a proper regard for human life.  Batman has also demonstrated care for Robin by preventing him from working with him on numerous occasions when the circumstances have been too dangerous, eventually stopping his collaboration with the first Robin (Dick Grayson) altogether after Robin was shot in the shoulder by the Joker.

The second reason is that indirect abuse is usually characterized as a crime of “extreme neglect.”  Id. at 784.  Batman is a lot of things but neglectful is not one of them.  He is in many ways a very active and engaged guardian to Robin. This simply doesn’t seem to be the kind of behavior the statute is meant to address.  One might compare this to other dangerous activities undertaken by parents and children, including driving, which injures about 250,000 children each year and kills about 2,000.

So at least in the case of Batman and Robin, child endangerment does not seem to be an issue.  Not all parent-child superhero teams fit their mold, however. For example, Big Daddy and Hit Girl in Kick-Ass would probably run afoul of child endangerment laws.  The evidence against Big Daddy would include the much greater degree of danger and (consistent with traditional neglect) Big Daddy giving Hit Girl cocaine, even if it is ‘only for emergencies.’

II. Should Robin At Least Be Getting Paid?

Also of concern are child labor laws.  There are both federal and state child labor laws.  The main federal child labor law is a part of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which prohibits “oppressive child labor.” 29 USC 212(c).  The definition of oppressive child labor given in 29 USC 203(l) is a little complicated, but we’ll try to break it down:

  1. As a general rule, no employees under 16 are allowed
    1. except a child employed by a parent or guardian (subject to part B, below)
      1. except if the occupation is manufacturing, mining, or an occupation found by the Secretary of Labor to be particularly hazardous for 16-18 year olds or detrimental to their health or well-being
    2. except if the Secretary of Labor says that it’s okay for 14-16 year olds so long as it’s confined to periods which will not interfere with their schooling or their health and well-being
      1. except mining and manufacturing are still out
  2. As a general rule, employees from 16-18 are allowed
    1. except if the Secretary of Labor has declared the occupation to be particularly hazardous for 16-18 year olds or detrimental to their health or well-being

Whew.  Got all that?  So we can see that the rules depend a bit on the child superhero’s age and their relationship to their adult superhero-supervisor.  In Robin’s case it looks like he’s in the clear to work with Batman so long as the Secretary of Labor doesn’t declare “crime-fighting” to be a particularly hazardous occupation.  However, many state child labor laws have “catch-all” provisions that prohibit employing children in dangerous occupations of any kind, no special pronouncement from the Secretary of Labor required.  If Gotham is in such a state, then things could get a bit dicier.

Of course, none of this matters if the superhero kid isn’t considered to be working in the first place.  You might think “well, they aren’t getting paid, so it must not be work, right?”  That can’t be the only thing to consider, though, otherwise it would be a great incentive not to pay one’s child employees.  As a result, many states have laws that make the presence of a child in a business presumptive evidence that the child is employed there.  See, e.g., Mo. Rev. Stat. 294.100; La. Rev. Stat. § 23:233.  But the Batcave doesn’t seem to be a place of business, so that’s not an issue.  All things considered, Robin and most other sidekicks are probably not employees.

So are there any cases where a child superhero might be considered an employee?  We think it would probably require an adult superhero who was in it for the money (e.g. collecting rewards or working as a mercenary or professional government agent).  Such superheroes definitely exist, but they don’t tend to have teenage sidekicks.  If any of our readers can think of an example, please let us know!

III. Conclusion

Child endangerment laws should be a concern for any superhero with a minor sidekick.  Absent pretty extraordinary (e.g. Batman-level) evidence of competence, safety measures, and general carefulness, fighting violent crime is probably dangerous enough to qualify as endangerment.  We suppose sidekicks could stick to fighting white collar crime, but “The Adventures of Securities Regulations Enforcement Boy” are unlikely to make for a very gripping read.

On the other hand, child labor laws are probably not a big issue, particularly for superheroes who act out of altruism and take care of their sidekicks.  But if a superhero is in it for the money, then giving a sidekick a cut is probably called for.

29 Comments

Posted in criminal law, labor law