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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   31615 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 16, 2023

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Uh...isn’t the salient feature that Baldwin shot someone? If he weren’t producing, hiring, etc. I would expect him to face the exact same charge. Maybe the armorer would also have liability, but I doubt it would roll uphill to the producer.

Negligent hiring can be a theory of liability, but looks at what the hirer knew or should have known about the candidate at the time of hiring. I'm not up on entertainment industry hiring structures, so don't know if producers are responsible for staffing. But assuming arguendo that they are, if the armorer was unqualified and incompetent, that could theoretically drag the producer into it.

Negligent hiring is a common basis for civil liability, but not for criminal liability. I suppose there might a case out there on criminal liability on that basis, but it would be an enormous stretch. Especially given that criminal negligence is a higher bar to prove than is the ordinary neglidence required to prevail civilly.

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