so there are a lot of things you can do to a person or their property
that will get you sued and sued good
there are also several defenses you can raise in court
to start with you could claim that the person consented
or agreed to the action that hurt them no matter what it might have been
it even counts as consent if they never come right out and tell you to do it
but they act in such a way that a reasonable person
would assume that they have consented
you can't claim the person consented if they were obviously
not capable of giving consent
there's a special exception now in many places where you can claim consent to
help an injured unconscious person
it's not clear why someone would sue the person
trying to help them but it happens
you can also get in trouble for doing more than the person consented to
unless there's some urgency that justifies it
while someone can give consent even if their consent is based on a mistake
the consent won't count if the mistake was caused by
or known by the person getting sued
a famous case of this was where a woman invited her doctor to her house
to help her give birth and the doctor brought some random dude
with him who wasn't a doctor
the woman said it was okay because the second guy was a doctor
and the actual doctor didn't correct her
so her consent didn't get him out being sued
consent also doesn't count if it's given under threats
another way to get out of being sued is to claim self-defense
you can harm someone and not get sued for it if you're using
reasonable force to keep someone from harming you
or from touching you in an offensive way
even if you're in a situation where force can be used for self-defense
that doesn't mean you can use as much force as you want to
the amount of force you use has to be reasonable
that means you can't use deadly force
unless you're being threatened with death or serious bodily harm
you can even use force in self-defense if you think you're in danger and
you're wrong as long as was reasonable think so
you are not however allowed to use force after the danger has passed
words by themselves almost never justify the use of force in self-defense
no matter how hurtful they are
you also can't use force in self-defense to avoid some distant future harm
you can use force to defend someone else without getting sued
provided they have the right to use force in their own defense
some places will let you off though if you help someone
who it turns out didn't deserve it
you can use force to defend property without being sued
as long as the force is reasonable
deadly force to preserve property is pretty much never reasonable
there's also the defense of necessity
it means when you're allowed to damage someone else's property
to keep something much worse from happening
not quite
better
moving on
necessity is nice because then you don't have to pay damages or go to court
if you cause damage to save the public or a large group of people
then you don't even have to pay for whatever damage you cause
if you only save yourself then you still have to pay for the damage you caused
though you won't be liable for anything extra like punitive damages
and there you have it