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Discussion => Philosophy, Economics and Justice => Topic started by: sofish89 on April 25, 2013, 02:58 pm

Title: Any law students here? Can the guy who got arrested for ricin sue them?
Post by: sofish89 on April 25, 2013, 02:58 pm
Can the guy who got arrested for the ricin letter sue for false imprisonment?
We studied this law case in class last week called Ferrel vs Mikula
if you google it theres more info but ill give you the short story
basically these  2 girls got arrested bec as they were leaving the resteraunt (somebody left without paying) someone pointed out their car to the cops instead of the suspects car
cops pulled them over and put them in handcuffs and detained them on the side of the road for 20 mins, and then let them go back to their car and drive off after they realized they had the wrong person
they went to court and sued the resteraunt a couple other defendants.
courts ruled in favor of defendants and case was dropped so they appealed
Appellate courts reversed the decision and said that they can be held liable for false imprisonment even if they had probable cause! Furthermore Ferrell can hold them liable for false imprisonment even though it wasnt malicious
Title: Re: Any law students here? Can the guy who got arrested for ricin sue them?
Post by: HEATFan on April 30, 2013, 11:58 am
He can try to sue for a multitude of things but ultimately it will all depend upon how much money this guy has available to spend and how good of a lawyer he gets. Some things I could imagine he could sue over is false imprisonment, reputation tarnishment, drawing unwanted media attention, loss of wages because it will make it harder for him to get employed, etc.. In the US, you can sue for anything you can think of pretty much. Do I think he is going to? Maybe. But it would most certainly be something small settled out of court.