Woman sues drug dealer and wins
Here’s a reason for the legalization folks: lawsuits! A woman in Canada successfully sued her drug dealer for giving her bad crystal meth that landed her in a coma.
“It was frustrating not having anything done through the criminal system,” said Sandy Bergen, 23, who has been drug- and alcohol-free since the 2004 incident. “Financially, I’m not really going to gain from it. But it’s a way of holding him responsible.”
Bergen and her parents launched the negligence suit against Clinton Davey in 2005, asking for more than $50,000 in medical costs and other damages. Bergen had a heart attack during the overdose and spent 11 days in a coma.
A Court of Queen’s Bench judge agreed to strike Davey’s statement of defence in the case, which essentially finds him legally responsible.
Get those associates working overtime on this!
Typically, in America, courts leave parties to an illegal bargain where it finds them.
Well, if the drug were legal under some circumstances, they it would be a voidable – not void – contract.
However, this appears to be grounded in tort, and suing someone that did something illegal for you under a tort theory (i.e. negligence) is still available.
The equitable doctrine of unclean hands (of which the “parties to an illegal bargain” doctrine is a subset) is broad enough to encompass torts. The idea is that the courts will simply not sully their hands.