Woman sues drug dealer and wins
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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!
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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.