Money Moral Dilemma: You broke it, would you pay to fix it?

Cornishpixie_2

ringo_24601 wrote: »

I'm sat in Cafe Nero, browsing the MSE site on my laptop.. suddenly, a clumsy fool trips and throws coffee over my fancy laptop.. who's responsibility is it? it's either a) the person who tripped or b) the person who left an item out that tripped someone up. Since in this moral question, the person in parts a and b are both the same, they've got full responsibility for the accident.

Let's swap this situation around a bit, and put a baby's pram in the place of the laptop. How many of you would do a runner now? Is it partially my fault because i brought a child into a coffee shop, or yours for being a clumsy oaf?

That's a bit harsh isn't it? I would imagine as this poor person already feels bad about incident they would be really upset about scalding a child!! Honestly:mad: Actually If I had no money to pay for it, then would hope person with laptop would meet me half way and come to some sort of compromise. Alternatively I could sell this one, maybe stop me coming onto site so often.:rotfl: :rotfl:

janbanan

A.Jones wrote: »

We were in a coffee shop last week and a kid a couple of tables away spilt some coke on the table, which dripped onto the edge of a woman's dress on the next table. She had a hissy fit, claiming the dress was worth over £400 and wanted £25 to have it dry cleaned by a specialist. The mother of the kid just said if you want it cleaned, then you pay for cleaning it. If you don't want to get it dirty, then don't wear it in a public place.

I agree with her.

So if an item (clothing, mobile, accessory) would cost 25 pounds (that's all she asked for) to either replace or repair, you can't bring it to to McDonalds?
If you cannot compensate for this small amount, maybe you should stay at home. Just because you are at McDonalds doesn't free you from responsibility of your kids.
However If it had been me in the dress, as it was a child spilling the drink, I would probably not have demanded the compensation. However I would have expected to have been offered!

Estimator1

I'm not sure whether by replacing the laptop that "the punishment fits the crime" here? It does not seem reasonable to me that a person should be liable for the safety of SOMEONE ELSE's equipment.
I would not pay, as the value of a replacement laptop seems to be unjust.

ATT_2

I'd ask the laptop owner to come up with a story so we could place the blame on McDonalds - like tip some coffee on the floor, move my bag and complain to the manager saying that it was the wet floor that caused the accident.

If the laptop owner wouldn't co-operate I'd give them a lecture on bringing such expensive equipment into the general public without insurance and leg it!

DEVILFISH

MrsE wrote: »

I'm disgusted at the amount of people on here that think its fine to damage someones stuff & walk/run off!!!

Reminds me of something that happened years ago.
Two mothers I knew, buth had boys, both had Sega Mega drives.
One boy, broke the other boys Sega Mega drive, (smashed it while throwing a tantrum, not deliberate, but it was one of the many things that got broke)
Did his mother take his off him & give it to the boys whos one he had broken.
Dod she hell, she thought it was too big a punishment to loose his game machine, anyway she had bought it and she would have had to replace it at some point in the future.
So the mother whos Sega had been smashed had to then cough up & buy another one & until she could do so, the boy had to go without.

Disgusting, isn't it?

But not so different to many of the attitudes on here!
So not really surprising.

I'm definitely in the court of not paying here. I think the example given by the above poster concerning the Mega Drive is not comparable. Such examples can be written in a biased fashion, and many have in other posts.
Now if my son broke his mates console then I would be buying them a new one, or (if i couldn't afford it) donating my sons to his mate as his deliberate actions/tantrum caused the damage... even if the damage itself was accidental he was the one being stupid.
The moral dilemma we were given is completely different.
I could just as easily conjour a scenario where Mr. Laptop takes his £1,500 piece of kit into a nursery school, whilst waiting for Master Laptop Junior to finish. Whilst waiting he decides to do a bit of powerpointing. When teacher closes the storybook one little child decides to throw a tantrum and hoofs a piece of playdough across the room, knocks coffee out of another parents hand all over Mr. Laptops... laptop. What is this? It's an accident, and who is to blame... a 3 year old child at nursery?- this is an essentially blameless incident and ultimately Mr. Laptop is the stupid one for taking his laptop into a nursery full of snotty children.
The McD scenario (the example we were asked to comment upon) is somewhere in between. McD isn't an entirely inappropriate place to take a laptop (as it does have wifi) but at the same time it is full of people of all ages carrying supersized meals with gallons of coke, drinks and not to mention chaotic childrens parties. I feel that this scene is significantly closer to the childrens nursery scenario. The person who tripped had an innocent accident (some may feel it was stupid but calling them negligent for tripping up is too far), it could have just as easily been a child with a happy meal throwing it about on the table next door. Either way the laptop user is the one taking the risk in such an establishment- exactly why McD would cover themselves with an 'at your own risk' clause when using the laptop. McD realise things get spilled in their restaurants and therefore so should anyone stupid enough to take uninsured expensive goods, be they a laptop, mink coat or priceless Da Vinci. The fact you are invited to take a laptop into McD with the wifi amemnity is the only redeeming feature in this scenario for the laptop user- still not enough to overule common sense though IMAO.

englishmac

This situation presents me with a quandary.

On the one hand, I would feel responsible for causing the accident in the first place and think I should offer to pay for repairs to the laptop – not replacement as this is disproportionate to the accident. Yes, there are no such things as ‘accidents’ in the majority of cases, only carelessness but this is a human trait and we are only human (most of us anyway!).

On the other hand this raises two significant issues.

Firstly, we are all responsible for our own actions. It is inappropriate to expect someone to cough up when you take the risk of using your expensive equipment in public. This applies equally to the clothing you choose to wear – whether it is a £400 outfit or a cheap tat ‘ensemble’. A cheap outfit is worth as much to the wearer as a £400 outfit – if we could all afford £400 outfits we would be laughing. Although I wouldn’t be happy for obvious reasons if it happened to me, I would think it my own fault for taking the risk. If I get a cigarette burn or a red wine stain on an outfit I wear in public, then I chalk it up to experience and my own decision to risk wearing said outfit.

Secondly, I have a real pet hate for the compensation culture aka blame culture. The number of people who are looking to make a quick buck out of the slightest thing sickens me. Insurance has been mentioned in a large number of posts on this thread. This is just a symptom of a compensation culture. The attitude that any misfortune that befalls us can be cured with a financial return is wrong. Insurance was originally developed for serious matters like looking after a family left behind following the death of a wage earner, circumstances that would have a major impact on a family’s survival. Now it is more often a symbol of greed - and an unreliable source of recompense at that. Also, the general assumption seems to be that an insurance company would pay out automatically. How often is a claim contested, especially for small sums ie the claim being contested so most claimants will drop a claim as the potential return is just not considered worth the fight? Not rightly contested, I might add – if you pay the premiums then the company should be prepared to pay up.

Expecting someone to pay for their unintended actions is a sign of the growing intolerance in our society. Of course, this doesn’t apply to deliberate carelessness such as drink driving resulting in damage/injury/death, etc. We should all accept a reasonable level of responsibility for our actions.

gfg683

I'm new to this so please excuse ignorance.
A post from a barrister advised paying up, there is probably another barrister out there with the opposite view point. Any chance of the deinitive answer from a sitting/retired judge, not on just this forum but others/any of them?
That way I could start saving now!

trejoy

Yeah, agree with Scotsbob, I do try to do the right thing. Dropped weedkiller in shop couple of weeks ago, carton split, told assistant and offered to pay. Dropped glass in TKMax this week, found assistant immediately, ( would never leave glass on floor), she thanked me for telling her! What goes around tends to come around, be nice but not gullible.:rotfl:

Tirgar

I think I would not only pay I would offer to clean their car and be their personal slave for a year as frankly anyone who can be drenched with a cup of mcdonalds coffee and still be 'unhurt' can't actually be human. So I would do anything to avoid being zapped with their laser beam vision !:eek:

barrieh2

There was a case in America (where else) of a woman tripping over a child in a well known department store and breaking her ankle, she claimed and won over $100,000 from the store, the punch line is that it was her own child that she tripped over. So this means the lady could sue McDonalds for her trip and pay for the laptop out of her compensation;)