Smoking townhouse neighbor sued in Dallas

[dolfan]

This story linked on Drudge raises some really great personal liberty questions. Read the article (or not) and answer the following questions, please:

1. Do American citizens have the right to smoke? If not, do you think American citizens have the right to choose what they consume? How much of your opinion is based on your convictions about the morality of smoking?? Can you personally distinguish between the right to smoke as a matter of liberty and an obligation to not smoke as a matter of morality? Is the Constitution first concerned with personal morality or personal liberty?


2. Do you think that one person's cigarette smoke, when released into a confined space, is sufficiently hazardous to whomever is in that confined space such that the smoke is a threat to their health? Now, assume that it is not an immediate threat, but is an immediate and serious annoyance -- would you conclude that smokers have a duty to mitigate the exposure, or that non-smokers have a duty to protect themselves and move away from the smoke??

3. Should the government even have a say in this, or should it be left between private parties to resolve as either of them sees fit to do it?


I can think of 20 more easily, but this should stoke the fire enough for good discussion. Pun intended.

[paul]

This story linked on Drudge raises some really great personal liberty questions. Read the article (or not) and answer the following questions, please:

1. Do American citizens have the right to smoke? If not, do you think American citizens have the right to choose what they consume? How much of your opinion is based on your convictions about the morality of smoking?? Can you personally distinguish between the right to smoke as a matter of liberty and an obligation to not smoke as a matter of morality? Is the Constitution first concerned with personal morality or personal liberty?


2. Do you think that one person's cigarette smoke, when released into a confined space, is sufficiently hazardous to whomever is in that confined space such that the smoke is a threat to their health? Now, assume that it is not an immediate threat, but is an immediate and serious annoyance -- would you conclude that smokers have a duty to mitigate the exposure, or that non-smokers have a duty to protect themselves and move away from the smoke??

3. Should the government even have a say in this, or should it be left between private parties to resolve as either of them sees fit to do it?


I can think of 20 more easily, but this should stoke the fire enough for good discussion. Pun intended.

sounds like pure old American Greed at work

Yes Citizens have a right to smoke, drink, cuss and chew and comitt adultry...The constitutions first concern should be the liberty of the people
But if these people end up in the hospital with lung cancer I don't want a government health plan that I pay for to pay their bill.

I think the ban on smoking in public is within reason.

As far as ones personal home. Some courts have said over and over again that what happens in ones bedroom is a private matter..Generally in favor of removing sodomy laws. So if the bedrooms is sacred for sex, then ones living room should be sacred to sit and have a smoke without government interference.

[dolfan]

Being the libertarian that I am at heart, I fully agree.

Let me toss this out, too, though. The legal idea of "nuisance" in property rights has strong ties to emissions and even shock waves. This is true in Alabama where we have quite a bit of coal mining activity. In short, anything that throws matter on another person (even if the matter is smoke particles --- maybe esp. if it is smoke particles) and causes them harm, is potentially actionable as a nuisance.

What if the smoker lives in a place he knows has poor ventilation so that his smoke wafts throught to a neighbor's home when the neighbor shares a common wall? What if the smoker knows of the travel of the smoke and continues to do it anyway? Does that change the equation?

[paul]

Being the libertarian that I am at heart, I fully agree.

Let me toss this out, too, though. The legal idea of "nuisance" in property rights has strong ties to emissions and even shock waves. This is true in Alabama where we have quite a bit of coal mining activity. In short, anything that throws matter on another person (even if the matter is smoke particles --- maybe esp. if it is smoke particles) and causes them harm, is potentially actionable as a nuisance.

What if the smoker lives in a place he knows has poor ventilation so that his smoke wafts throught to a neighbor's home when the neighbor shares a common wall? What if the smoker knows of the travel of the smoke and continues to do it anyway? Does that change the equation?

What struck me in the article was that the lady renewed her lease even after what she said was symptoms.

Why not in the property management their simply be a release of liability, if you ( hopefully provided by the property manager) sign a lease knowing that the tenent next door above or below you is a smoker. Then you made the choice..and the nuscience law should not apply.

kind of like land opening up at the end of a runway of an airport that has been there for 50 years. You build the house and then want to file a lawsuit because of the noise level

[MacUser]

I say ban Apartments, Town Houses, etc. Then Ban houses that are close together... so we can use up more land!

These guys just need some space!

[oletimer]

kind of like land opening up at the end of a runway of an airport that has been there for 50 years. You build the house and then want to file a lawsuit because of the noise level

One of my pet peeves is some going out in the country and buying next to a cow pasture because it is so nice and then complain because of the cows.