Law and the Multiverse

As mentioned at the end of the previous post in this series, Felicity Smoak’s particularly claim against Firestorm appears to be malpractice.  Firestorm asks “Wait a second, come on…you’re not serious. How can you sue me?” to which she replies “Ever hear of malpractice, flamebrain? Read some newspapers.”

So how about it?  Could a superhero be liable for malpractice (apart from ones like Daredevil or Dr. Strange, of course)?

I. Who is Liable for Malpractice?

We commonly think of malpractice as being something that only doctors need to worry about, but medical malpractice is only one kind of malpractice.  Attorneys certainly worry about legal malpractice, and accounts and others can also be liable for professional malpractice.  But what about superheroes?  In New York at least, I think the answer is no.

The highest court in New York, the Court of Appeals, has defined malpractice as “professional misfeasance toward one’s client.” Chase Scientific Research v. NIA Group, 96 N.Y.2d 20 (2001).  Over the years before the Chase Scientific case, the scope of nonmedical malpractice liability in New York had grown, perhaps even enough to include superheroes.  Cases held that it covered attorneys, accountants, engineers, insurance brokers, surveyors, and even landscapers. Roizen v. Marder’s Nurseries, 161 Misc.2d 689, 691 (Sup. Ct. 1994).  And then the state legislature made some amendments to the statute of limitations rules for nonmedical malpractice, which gave the Court of Appeals a reason to consider the definition of a “professional” in Chase Scientific.

In that case, the court held that the legislature intended to include only a few discrete groups sharing qualities such as “extensive formal learning and training, licensure and regulation indicating a qualification to practice, a code of conduct imposing standards beyond those accepted in the marketplace and a system of discipline for violation of those standards.” Chase Scientific, 96 N.Y.2d at 29.  Basically, according to the court, that means architects, engineers, lawyers, and accountants.

That’s a pretty tough bar for superheroes to meet.  They don’t really have formal learning or training.  In the DC Universe there are hints and references to superhero or “meta-human” registration laws that give superheroes certain benefits, such as the ability to testify in costume under the DC Universe’s fictional version of the 12th Amendment.  That might count as “licensure and regulation indicating a qualification to practice.”  We could even assume that the licensing system comes with a code of conduct and a system of discipline, but that’s a bit of a reach.

But even assuming that Smoak somehow manages to convince a court that superheroes are a new professional class, she would still have to show that Firestorm had a professional-client relationship with the company that owned the computer disks that he ruined.  No professional-client relationship, no malpractice.  There might be ordinary negligence, of course, but there can’t be malpractice.

Could there have been such a relationship here?  Taking on work for profit is not a requirement, or else doctors and attorneys doing charity work would be immune to malpractice claims.  But what about someone like Firestorm who is minding their own business, sees someone in need, and swoops into help with the imperiled person’s implied consent?  Can a professional-client relationship be formed in such circumstances?  The answer is yes.  Those kinds of situations are one of the major reasons why Good Samaritan laws exist.  So there could have been an implied professional-client relationship, but it’s probably a moot point unless New York’s laws changed (either its superhero licensing or its malpractice laws).  But just for fun, let’s run with this argument a little longer.

II. What is the Standard of Care?

One of the main features that distinguishes malpractice from ordinary negligence is the standard of care.  In ordinary negligence the standard is reasonable care.  In malpractice the situation is more complicated.  For an attorney in New York it’s something like the “degree of skill commonly exercised by an ordinary member of the legal community.”  Thaler & Thaler v. Gupta, 208 A.D.2d 1130, 1132 (Sup. Ct. App. Div. 1994).  For a doctor the rule is especially complex, taking into account the standard of care in the local community, developments in the science of medicine, and the degree of specialization.  It’s that higher standard of care that makes suing for malpractice rather than ordinary negligence worth the trouble from the plaintiff’s point of view.

The practical upshot to all this is that, if superheroes were subject to malpractice liability, it’s very likely that the superhero standard of care would vary from place to place.  Areas with a lot of “A-list” superheroes (e.g. New York, Metropolis) would demand a high level of care: fast service, minimal collateral damage.  People in Milwaukee might not be able to expect quite that level of service.

III. Conclusion

As we concluded last time, Smoak might have a negligence claim against Firestorm.  It relies on some novel legal arguments, and in my opinion it’s pretty tenuous as a factual matter, but I think it’s a good faith claim.  The malpractice claim is a lot shakier.  Back in the early 1980s it might have still had a prayer, but I think only because the Court of Appeals hadn’t really seriously considered the subject.  Once the topic came up squarely on appeal it had no trouble significantly constraining the definition of malpractice even in the absence of specific language in the statute defining “malpractice” or “professional.”  So probably no malpractice liability for superheroes, at least in New York.

We haven’t seen the last of Felicity Smoak, though, nor the last of Firestorm causing trouble for her business.  Things only get worse from here, so stay tuned!

Today’s post brings us back to the world of comic books and begins a series of posts about the legal troubles of Firestorm, as detailed in The Fury of Firestorm #23-50.  The stories were primarily written by Gerry Conway, who later went on to write for Perry Mason and Law & Order, so we should be in for a treat.  Thanks to the reader known only as Methane for bringing this great story arc to our attention.

The story is set in New York, so we will use the law of that state where possible.

In the first part of the arc we are introduced to Felicity Smoak, the litigious software company manager who we’ll be seeing a lot more of soon.  While flying over Manhattan, Firestorm sees a freight train about to go over a bridge into the Hudson.  Using his powers over matter, he (or is it they? Firestorm is confusing) converts some nearby scrap metal into a giant magnet and hoists the train to safety.

Unfortunately, the freight the train was carrying was “five carloads of computer chips and software disks,” which were ruined by the magnet, costing Smoak’s company eight million dollars. She indicates that she plans to sue Firestorm to recover the losses.

Setting aside the issue of squeezing blood from turnips, does she have any kind of a case? It’s not clear how many people were on the train, but since this was set in the 1980s, there was surely at least a conductor, and there’s some indication that Smoak may have been on the train as well. Firestorm says “you were going to crash”, and she is standing next to the train when Firestorm lands.

Basically, Smoak is alleging negligence on Firestorm’s part. This is a fair point.  He undertook to rescue the train and the people on it, which created a duty of ordinary care. “Under New York law, one who assumes a duty to act even though gratuitously, may thereby become subject to the duty of acting carefully.” Kaplan v. Dart Towing, 159 A.D.2d 610, 612 (Sup. Ct. App. Div. 1990). So the question is, would a reasonable person exercising ordinary care have done what Firestorm did? Was there some other way Firestorm could have saved the train that was even less likely to have side effects for its potential cargo yet still be as effective? Would a reasonable person exercising ordinary care have ever even thought about the possibility that the cargo might have been sensitive to magnetism, especially in the heat of the moment?

My guess is that, even if Firestorm could have saved the train in an equally effective but ‘safer’ way, the thought that the train might have been carrying magnetically-sensitive material would not have occurred to the ordinary reasonable person, especially in 1984.

That sounds bad for Ms. Smoak, but there is an alternate theory, one that is admittedly untested in the real world.  In the real world people do sometimes rescue other people, but they rarely do it by, say, levitating a freight train above Manhattan.  Could it not be argued that what Firestorm was doing constituted an abnormally dangerous activity?  Consider the:

(a) existence of a high degree of risk of some harm to the person, land or chattels of others;
(b) likelihood that the harm that results from it will be great;
(c) inability to eliminate the risk by the exercise of reasonable care;
(d) extent to which the activity is not a matter of common usage;
(e) inappropriateness of the activity to the place where it is carried on; and
(f) extent to which its value to the community is outweighed by its dangerous attributes.

Restatement (Second) of Torts § 520. Some of these factors pretty clearly exist here (b, d, e).  Whether factors a, c, and f exist are harder to say and would again depend at least partly on testimony from Firestorm. Ultimately, whether to apply strict liability would be up to the judge rather than the jury.

Strict liability does have its limits. The damages are limited to those kinds of injuries that make the abnormally dangerous activity abnormally dangerous. For example, in the case of Foster v. Preston Mills Co., a logging operation was using explosives, which startled the mother mink at a mink ranch over two miles away, causing them to kill their kittens, which is apparently a common mink response to sudden disturbances.  The court held that although using explosives is a strict liability activity, the risk of causing mother mink to kill their kittens arises from “the exceedingly nervous disposition of mink, rather than the normal risks inherent in blasting operations.”

In this case, erasing computer disks is not what makes levitating a freight train dangerous.  But it might possibly be part of what makes creating a giant magnet in the middle of a crowded city dangerous.  It’s a bit of a stretch, but it’s a stronger case than negligence. And it’s actually something that should concern many superheroes, especially those whose superpowers are capable of causing significant collateral damage despite the exercise of reasonable care.

So, Smoak might have a case for strict liability, but it would be an untested theory. Next week we’ll address the claim she actually seems to be making: superhero malpractice!