An understandably distraught mother is suing the University of California and the Berkeley Student Cooperative because her son (who rented a room in a coop) had a heart attack and suffered brain damage after taking drugs:
The mother of a UC Berkeley student left severely brain-damaged in 2010 after a drug overdose at a campus residence sued the University of California regents and the Berkeley Student Cooperative on Thursday, saying they knew of rampant drug abuse at the house but failed to protect the students.
Madelyn Bennett of San Diego is seeking damages that could soar into the millions of dollars from UC, which owns the Cloyne Court co-op, and from the agency that leases and manages the residence.
Her son, John Bennett Gibson, requires round-the-clock nursing and custodial care, according to the lawsuit filed on his behalf in Alameda County Superior Court.
The son was 21 at the time. A legal adult. I am sorry to see this happen to anyone, but unless he was given drugs against his will, I see him and him alone as being responsible for his plight.
Millions, of course, would disagree with me. They think that if someone takes drugs, it is someone else’s fault. I am unable to understand this philosophy, and this is a particularly egregious example of it. If the University is responsible for the behavior of adult students in their own rented spaces simply because it owns and leases the property they’re on, then why wouldn’t a private landlord be similarly responsible? Unless and until a tenant’s conduct causes interference to others, I can’t see how a landlord has any responsibility other than to comply with the terms of the lease.
Anyway, who is in the best position to intervene and help a grown man with a drug problem? It seems to me that it would be the man’s family. This mother is saying that the University “knew of rampant drug use” there. Well, what about her? Did she know? She raised this kid, right? Was she paying his rent? Had she ever known him to take drugs when he lived with her? It seems to me that she would be the one in the best position to know in a specific sense what is going on with her son and with his living situation, not the owner of the land.
Back in the early 70s, I lived in the Berkeley student coop system (which I loved), and I would be willing to bet that there was even more drug use then than there is now. In those days people who took the risks were considered responsible for the risks they took. What has changed?
At the rate things are going, they’ll be saying that distilleries, liquor stores, and bartenders are responsible for the alcohol consumption of their clients. And landlords who are alleged to “know of rampant alcohol use” by their tenants will be held liable if their tenants drink themselves into a coma or get cirrhosis.
Communitarianism is running amok.
Sorry, but I am not my brother’s keeper, and I don’t want to be my brother’s keeper. The reason is simple. Because if I am my brother’s keeper, what’s to stop my brother from being my keeper?
Those who want to be left alone should leave others alone, lest they forfeit their claim.
Comments
4 responses to “Who is responsible?”
I am a Berkeley landlord. If a landlord knows that there is ‘rampant drug use’ at his property, he better try to stop it, or he is going to have a lot of legal trouble. If you are a landlord, and you have actual knowledge that illegal activity is taking place on your property, you cannot simply ignore it and say “I see nothing”, like Sgt. Schultz. Landlords of crack houses and meth labs get into serious legal trouble if they know what is going on and do nothing. Alcohol is different. It is a legal product. Marijuana is also different. It is semi-legal.
[…] I am getting a more than a little tired of angry grieving mothers who blame other people for the regrettable or stupid actions of their dead […]
Sorry, dude, but if you join a student cooperative society, you become a member of a group who are, by virtue of being in a group that is selective and self-contained, your brothers keeper. You have an obligation to look out for and help your housemates.
If this guy was a jerk who had a drug problem or was dealing, his housemates should not have ignored it but should have turned him in to get counseling or get kicked out. If they didn’t, maybe it was because they liked living with him, either because of the drugs or in spite of them.
I think that the lawsuit was about the delay in getting help and the fact that the bsc and the university knew about the drug use. Everybody knows. I knew when I was a student (but my mother, who lived 300 miles away) didn’t. I loved living there. Who wouldn’t?
Nobody even blinks about the alcohol consumption by people under the age of 21. There is some confusion about being a legal adult now. When you were in school in the 70’s (dude, you are old), I think people could drink and vote at 18 and they were responsible for paying for their college education if their parents chose not to (or couldn’t). Now you can vote and go to war at 18 but can’t drink until you are 21. Your parents are responsible for paying for your college education until you are 24 or in graduate school or married. People who have studied the minds of young people say that they do not make good judgments until they are 26. Many trust funds do not disburse monies until the recipient is 30 because they are not adult enough to handle it.
My mother, who was ignorant about my drug use and what went on in my coop, is still paying off my education with the loans she had to take out because she made too much money for me to qualify for student aid but not enough to pay for my education. I lived in the coops initially to save money, but learned to love them because we did look out for one another and we were our brothers keeper.
I guess living in the coops in the 70’s didn’t convey the lessons that the coops intended — or you are just a cynical and selfish old man now.
Had he died of an excess of transfats would the coop still be responsible?
What if he drank himself to death? Would that be different?