High school is hell, but can Sunnydale be sued for building on top of a hellmouth?

By

-

August 8, 2012

“From beneath you, it devours.”

High school is a rough time for most of us. Joss Whedon took this basic truth and turned it into brilliance in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where high school’s metaphorical terrors turn literal. And given that high school is hell, where better to locate a hellmouth then directly under Sunnydale High?

Big deal. So there’s a hellmouth under Sunnydale High, so what? Well, for parents considering sending their children there, they should know that, while Buffy attended Sunnydale High, the hellmouth was located directly under the library and even when the school was rebuilt they decided to put the hellmouth directly under the principal’s office. And this hellmouth is not for the faint of heart. At times there were large, octupi-like demons that would reach up into the libary out of the hellmouth (for example, in The Zeppo, one of my favorite Buffy episodes ever). Later, under the rebuilt high school, the First Evil stocked up on uber-vampires known as Turok-Hans inside the hellmouth, preparing to take over the world.

Having such a hellmouth under the high school obviously has an impact on the safety (even the life expectancy) of students attending the school. The question is – can somebody be held responsible for this poor design plan? And the answer is – yes.

In California, the state in which the fictional Sunnydale High is set, a public entity such as a school can be held responsible for an injury caused by a dangerous condition of its property if you can show that: (1) the property was in a dangerous condition at the time of the injury; (2) the injury was proximately caused by the dangerous condition; (3) the dangerous condition created a reasonably foreseeable risk of the kind of injury that was incurred; (4) and either (a) a negligent or wrongful act or omission of an employee of the school created the dangerous condition within the scope of his employment , or (b) the school had actual or constructive notice of the dangerous condition a sufficient time prior to the injury to have taken measures to protect against the dangerous condition.

All of the above can certainly be established for students and staff at Sunnydale High. The Hellmouth is certainly a dangerous condition that caused physical harm and/or death to many students and staff (for example, the great psychologist Mr. Platt). As for the type of risk suffered (e.g., killed by werewolves, turned into sea monsters), the law does not require that the precise nature of the accident be foreseeable – just that the general character of the event should be foreseeable. Demonic activity and bizarre metamorpheses are certainly the general types of events that could be foreseen when your school is built on top of a hellmouth. Finally, while the residents of Sunnydale were willing to turn a blind eye to dangerous conditions that existed in the entire town, an objective outsider would argue that, at least by the end of the first season, the school had active or constructive notice of the hellmouth’s existence.

In sum, Sunnydale High turns on its head the general belief held by courts that “schools are not considered to be dangerous places per se.” The matriculation rate at Sunnydale High had to be shockingly low, with many sad losses of students, staff, and faculty (although Harmony actually improved after death). And a good lawyer could have made the school pay for that…assuming, of course, that Mayor Wilkins didn’t kill her first.

The Legal Geeks Review Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (YouTube)

By

Josh Gilliland

-

July 19, 2012

0

Attorneys Josh Gilliland and Jessica Mederson discuss Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and the US Civil War History.

President Lincoln: Saving America from Sparkling Vampires

By

Josh Gilliland

-

July 18, 2012

0

The Era of Sparkling Vampires is Over. And we owe this glorious day of jubilee to Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Sure, the movie plays liberally with the historical record, but at the end of the day, it is worth it: There have been too many movies with teenage girls (and some women in their 40s) squealing over sparkling vampires who feed on the living.

Finally having a film depicting undead-day-walkers as evil beings, who use people for food, fought by an ax-wielding Abraham Lincoln, is the first step in the long healing process caused by years of damage from Twilight. Once again, President Lincoln has saved the United States of America.

The film Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is the [fictional] story of President Lincoln’s vampire hunting past and the secret war within the Civil War. The story begins with Abraham Lincoln as a boy, whose mother is killed by a vampire. Being a good son, he swears revenge on vampires.

A Short History of The Slave Power

Historians and antebellum statesmen called the political forces that dominated the Presidency and Congress before the Civil War, “The Slave Power.” Until the election of Abraham Lincoln, the only non-slave owning Presidents were John Adams, John Quincy Adams and Martin Van Buren. All were from the North; all lost re-election.

This “Slave Power” fought for slavery and the expansion into Western Territories as they became states. From the Compromise of 1820, to the Gag Rule, to the Fugitive Slave Act, to the election of James K. Polk and the Mexican-American War, to the Compromise of 1850, to the Dred Scott case, are all evidence of political forces driving the expansion of slavery leading up to the Civil War.

The Slave Power took the election of Abraham Lincoln as a direct threat to their existence, because the North was able to elect Lincoln entirely on their own, despite three other candidates running for President (including the sitting Vice President of the United States). Seeing they could no longer rule the Federal Government, they decided to ruin it with secession in an attempt to nullify the Presidential Election. The eleven Southern states seceded in exact inverse proportion to the number of slaves versus free whites, with South Carolina first in December 1860.

The Civil War followed more than a month after Abraham Lincoln’s Inauguration.

The Vampire Threat

In our fictional story, there was the hidden “Vampire Power” [my term] which operated in the South, using slaves as a steady supply of “food” that was free of any legal ramifications of people going missing.

While not directly stated, the unholy supply system included vampires in Border States leveraging the Fugitive Slave Act as a means to capture “runaway slaves” and send the victims to the hellish fate of being a meal for a vampire in New Orleans [at least, historically, that is the context I saw in the meeting along the river between Adam and Jack Barts]. This had the effect of “containing” the majority of vampires in The South.

Historical Comparisons

The film touched on various historical figures. Here are a few observations:

Steven Douglass, played by Alan Tudyk of Firefly fame, missed the fire of the Senator captured by historians such as Stephen Oates. Douglass was nicknamed the Little Giant. He drank. He swore. And he was supremely confident of himself. One would have to be confident to be the champion of “Popular Sovereignty” in letting territories vote if they would be free or permit slavery, something completely incompatible with the Declaration of Independence. After he lost the election of 1860, Senator Douglass was determined to win the Civil War with President Lincoln (until his death early in the Civil War).

Mary Todd Lincoln was delightfully played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead. History remembers Mary Todd being high maintenance, but God knows the stress she endured. Three of her sons died. Her husband was murdered next to her. Her eldest son tried putting her in an insane asylum. The trial ended Robert Lincoln’s political chances of becoming President, relegating him to serve as Secretary of War under President Garfield and then Arthur.

Winstead portrayed Mary Todd as confident, cute, loving to her husband and not afraid to take the kill shot.

Joshua Speed lived until 1882. Really do not need to go into more detail.

Jefferson Davis had an eye disease. One history book I read in college described it as looking dead.

The Civil War Battles & History

The Civil War parts of the film focused on September 17, 1862 with the Battle of Antietam. The film lightly addressed the importance of this battle.

Antietam was the bloodiest day in American History with over 23,000 casualties.

For Lincoln, it was enough of a victory to sign the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which would free the slaves in the states in rebellion on January 1, 1863.

This was a brilliant geopolitical move, because it turned the Civil War into a war of liberation to end slavery, forcing England to NOT officially recognize the South as a separate country. If England had officially sided with the South and provided military support, Lincoln would have had a two front war, with British soldiers invading from Canada and the British Navy blockading the East Coast. Further illustrating the danger, England (specifically English companies) had provided different forms of assistance to the South, including the construction of warships CSS Alabama and CSS Shenandoah (the last Confederate warship), which were built in England and then armed at sea.

However, Great Britain did not recognize the South and officially stayed neutral throughout the Civil War.

Back to the film: By the time of Gettysburg on July 1, 1863, Confederate President Davis recruited the vampires to fight for the Confederacy. This causes significant losses on the first day of the battle.

Without giving too much away, the battle is saved by arming the Union soldiers with silver bullets, cannon balls and bayonets (it is implied that the final battle is Pickett’s charge) .

However, what the battle did not show was how weapons inflicted damage at the time. Round bullets would rip off limbs, unlike projectiles of today.

As my old Civil War History professor at UC Davis stated, “The defining feature of the later half of the 19th Century were men with empty sleeves and lifeless eyes.”

War is always Hell, but Gettysburg had to be a new level of nightmares for anyone at Little Round Top, Pickett’s Charge, or any other part of that battle.

That Government of the People, by the People, for the People, Shall not Perish from the Earth…

In closing, I enjoyed Benjamin Walker’s performance as Abraham Lincoln. He masterfully delivered the Gettysburg Address with confidence and strength. It is easy to imagine it being stated very solemnly. His tone as the resolute leader was well done.

Is Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter going to win any Oscars? Extremely unlikely, other than perhaps sound or special effects. But, the production team was profoundly classy in having the premier of the movie on the USS Abraham Lincoln for our sailors serving overseas.

Speaking of sailors, I look forward to James Madison: Werewolf Hunter, the untold story of how the War of 1812 was more than just the impressment of sailors.