r/therewasanattempt 5d ago

To steal another person's property

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u/SlowDownHotSauce 5d ago

not legal advice - That is probably fine. As long as it is not reasonably foreseeable to cause bodily harm or emotional distress. Better off not testing that line though.

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u/UntestedMethod 5d ago

What about Mark Rober's anti-porch-pirate glitter bombs? Could those be considered to cause emotional distress to the thieves?

I'm just curious where the line is...

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u/SlowDownHotSauce 5d ago

Highly unlikely. Emotional distress needs to rise to a very high level before it is something you’re likely to win in court.

The test usually involves something like showing that the person is SO emotionally distressed that they cannot function normally like they used to. Like can’t sleep, work, etc.

So not really a risk of that happening from the glitter/stink bomb stuff. MAYBE if the stink bomb caused like a crazy allergic reaction or something, but even then you’d have to prove that it was reasonably foreseeable that the allergic reaction would occur and that Marc knew/or should have known that it was likely to happen. At that point, it would honestly make more sense to sue the stink bomb manufacturer for strict product liability. Instead of Marc Rober.

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u/skippyjifluvr 5d ago

Vanessa Bryant won an emotional distress claim against a first responder after she heard he showed someone a picture of the helicopter crash site.

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u/PhgAH 5d ago

I mean yeah, knowing photo of your husband corpse is being passed around probably cause more distress than being glitter-bombed

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u/BowenTheAussieSheep 4d ago

Not to mention the very high risk of some outlet like TMZ offering whoever has that photo big bucks so they can show it to the entire world.

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u/maroon1721 5d ago

I may be wrong, but I thought her claim was more akin to invasion of privacy, not a pure emotional distress claim. You can tag emotional distress along with another claim—it’s the standalone distress claim that’s almost impossible to win.

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u/cyon_me 4d ago

This is not a gotcha, the courts tend to be more competent than the headlines suggest.