NASA ought to pay up after space debris punched a hole in my roof, homeowner says A Florida homeowner has sued NASA for more than $80,000 in compensation after debris from the International Space Station smashed a hole in his roof. Alejandro Otero is understandably upset that the plummeting trash crashed into his family's house on March 8. According to his attorney Mica Nguyen Worthy, nobody was injured, …
Claim subrogation is just passing (part of) one claim from one body to another: you contact your insurer, they do the leg work to contact the insurers of anyone else involved, they look at what happened and make a claim against another body's insurer and so and so forth. This is one good reason for using an insurer, as you pass all that leg and paperwork over to them.
Anyone who has made a claim involving a third party is well aware of this (e.g. swapping insurance details after a prang, or when you burn down your neighbour's fence).
BUT the double claim being asked about here is the fact that the Oteros not only made a claim via their insurers but ALSO made a separate claim/action directly against NASA, doing an end-run around the insurers.
Which tends to mean that the person is trying it on - e.g. after a prang you get a lawyer's letter sent directly to you waffling on about whiplash; this is meant to scare you into making a bad move and pay up on a fake claim. All you actually do is pass that directly on to your insurer, who then probably starts taking a much closer look at the claims of the other party and gets very sceptical indeed ('cos your insurers get a better go at it if they can drop heavy hints about fraudulent claims). At least, that is how it'll work in the UK and EU with a half-decent insurer (from experience and anecdotes from colleagues).
No idea how it goes in the US, so not accusing the Oteros of anything, it may be quite normal over there.
...on the other hand, in compensation for that "stress", they have a genuine piece of space hardware, with absolute provenance, that would quite likely fetch a decent amount at auction. If NASA are going to be on the hook for "damages" such as "stress", they may well just decide that the space debris is their property and take it off them. The homeowner will get the insurance claim sorted and maybe get "damages" from NASA or a pretty much guaranteed payout from an auction. Personally I'd go with the auction where I'd expect to get at least a 6 figure sum m ore or less immediately rather than gamble on suing NASA for $millions and maybe getting nothing, or very little, years down the line after court cases, appeals, lawyers fees and loads of additional actual stress.
Maybe flotsam vs jetsam is relevant here. As it was deliberatly 'thrown overboard' it would be jetsam in which case NASA no longer owns it.
https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/flotsam-jetsam.html
"Under maritime law the distinction is important. Flotsam may be claimed by the original owner, whereas jetsam may be claimed as property of whoever discovers it. If the jetsam is valuable, the discoverer may collect proceeds received though the sale of the salvaged objects."
"Or of curiosity, are there insurance which cover this?"
Yes.
I just called my household insurance carrier. She tells me that they would immediately pay out for all repairs for the damage, and then THEY would look to recover their money from NASA (or whoever). In the case of non-man-made space debris, they would "act of god" it and fix whatever got broken. In either case, I would be allowed to retain the debris.
She further said that it sounds to her like somebody is looking for a book and/or movie deal in the "Much Ado About Nothing" genre. (That's the modern interpretation of the words, not Shakespeare's tounge-in-cheek version).
She also suggested that anybody reading this should check with their own carrier, and not take the word of some random guy on the Internet.
"I've never had any problems collecting on legit claims."
and there's the rub. The scummy company will argue over the legitimacy of the claim in much the same way as generations of lawyers have put their kids through college thanks to the adjective "reasonable". Prime example (for me) was an employment contract that included "reasonable overtime". Reasonable for the company being "what we need, when we need".
It was comparing the way that contracts can use vague language so they can include or exclude almost anything while not looking as if they do. Of course, the definition of "reasonable" or similar words is not whatever the drafter was thinking, but to get a ruling on it, you have to get a judge to decide what it meant. That takes a long time, potentially a lot of money, and can still be pretty random.
"Prime example (for me) was an employment contract that included "reasonable overtime". Reasonable for the company being "what we need, when we need"."
Ambiguous contracts are ambiguous. “A contract or a provision in a contract is ambiguous if it is reasonably susceptible to more than one interpretation or construction."[0]
I line-through such things in contracts, label them "ambiguous" and initial and date the change. I've never lost a job for doing this.
You do read and understand contracts (or get help from a lawyer) before signing them, don't you?
[0]According to Black's Law Dictionary (11th edition, 2019)
Came to say just this. In the UK we're (currently) protected in this way with contracts.You write it so it's vague - either intentionally or not - and the benefit of the doubt goes to the other party.
In terms of insurers bad behaviour though - I was t-boned a couple of years ago. Completely the other parties fault, with witnesses to prove it.
However, their insurer tried: to say I was driving at excess speed which was a 50% contribution to the accident and then quibbled over the value of my car which was declared a write off.
For the speed, I had a tracker which showed I'd never gone above 18mph (the accident occurred within 200 metres of my home - I was taking the car to be serviced. At least I wasn't bringing it home after it had been serviced!).
In terms of the payout and valuation - I got about 85% of the value and then almost 18 months later I got the remainder.
The two payout sticking points were the value of my vehicle (as I said above) - it was a fairly unique set of factory fit features so in fairness it was hard to pin down, but they obviously wanted to low-ball it.
The other one, I can kind of see their point, though. The cost of the hire vehicle came in at something north of £50k... I only had it about 12 weeks! You could have literally bought the car.
It was all set to go to court before they finally settled out of court for an amount I never found out.
Of it all though, the thing that pisses me off the most is that even though I was the innocent victim of someone else's mistake, my own premiums went up considerably because now I'm seen as a "higher risk" driver. Greedy bastards all round.
Mine would. I was chuckling with my wife once over the fact that it explicitly covers damage caused by spacecraft. The policy summary made for entertaining reading. For example, it notes that acts of war are not covered, and then goes on to say that the detonation of a nuclear weapon is an act of war even if it's accidental.
What if the nuclear device was owned by the Scouts (that is the US Scouts; over here he'd be a tad old to still be in the Boy Scouts) or the Brownies?
Can a legal minor commit an Act of War[1]?
[1] tried g**gling that but didn't get any good answers, and none that I'd want to put on my insurance claim)
...it could establish precedence that government organizations have to be responsible for their space debris.
Of course.
It's called the "polluter pays" principle.
You make a mess and you clean it up.
If it's good enough for individuals than surely it's good enough for governments however hard they twist and turn to try and wriggle out of their obligations.
It would be the decent thing to do for NASA to pay for repairs, and offer some small goodwill compensation. Whether $80k is sufficient, or reasonable, I don't know. In my experience, people - and their lawyers - tend to inflate claims, on the basis that they won't get it all, but, on the other hand, having a bloody big hole punched through your house is a fairly big thing.
If NASA fights and wins, they will look bad. If they fight and lose they will set a precedent that might cost them a lot more money one day. Surely, the best thing to do is settle - it's a trivial sum to NASA, they get to do -and be seen to be doing - the right thing, and they don't say any kind of bidding precedent. What's not to like?
>it's a trivial sum to NASA
But perhaps sets a precedent.
Is the US government responsible for anything that falls off a ship ? There is centuries of case law on flotsam, jetsam, lagan - does this apply to space "ships" ?
Does it apply to military kit? If a US shell casing or drop tank lands on you does that get you compensation, does you have to be a citizen / ally / not-a-target ?
Does it apply to pollution? Is NASA responsible for emissions from its rocket launches ? Are US merchant vessels responsible for CO2 emissions in the same way as they are for pollution ?
"Does it apply to military kit? If a US shell casing or drop tank lands on you does that get you compensation, does you have to be a citizen / ally / not-a-target ?"
Yes, although you have to be not a target because if you are the target and you are able to sue, they'll just try again. Still, militaries have been sued for damage before and have had to compensate for it. Expect that they'll have lawyers to argue that it shouldn't apply this time.
"Does it apply to pollution? Is NASA responsible for emissions from its rocket launches ?"
I would think so, but the good news for them is that the people who write the pollution laws can also exempt things from them if they want. If we decided that we want them to be exempt from this, we could make that happen.
"Are US merchant vessels responsible for CO2 emissions in the same way as they are for pollution ?"
To the extent that it is regulated, yes, although there are complications related to where the ship is registered and located which may allow a ship operated primarily by and for Americans to avoid having those laws apply some or all of the time.
.. Well I could certainly see the "emotional distress" aspect in something punching a big hole in your house when a family member was inside.
Similar to people getting badly distrubed by a house burglary etc. - they lose their ideal of the home being a safe space & feel more stressed, less comfortable in their home after the event.
Plus all the worry about other "invisible" damage - e.g. might be subtle damage to structural integrity of the building due to energy of the impact, that may not be instantly obvious but the inhabitants are concerned problems could arise in the future & worry that if these occur a few years down the line there may be more legal fights to get costs covered.
Reminds me of the song "There's a Hole in My Bucket"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There's_a_Hole_in_My_Bucket
A modern version of which would probably have some lines to do with insurance
There's a hole in my Soyuz
Dear Ivan, dear Ivan.
...Sorry, that's already been done on El Reg, for an older incident.
This story is much more like 'The Gas Man Cometh' (link to Youtube) by Flanders & Swann.
Singing which will be my last request if I'm to be executed. Since the song is about all the unexpected jobs that come up after the gas man has come to "fix" your gas tap - hence the song is of infinite length.
>>Since the song is about all the unexpected jobs that come up after the gas man has come to "fix" your gas tap - hence the song is of infinite length.
I sing this to myself whenever asked by SWMBO to do any DIY.... invariably the 'simple job' turns into a 3 week removal from use of the afflicted house part.
Beer cos Flanders & Swann
If NASA pays up, there's no need to wait years for a court date and spend on the money on BSL's (Blood Sucking Lawyers). As long as the compensation is reasonable, it shouldn't be an issue although "emotional distress" is pushing it. There's no guarantee of life being perfectly comfortable and non-stressful at all times. I've had a few close shaves in my life and I was thankful bad things didn't come to pass. Trying to find somebody to sue once the adrenaline got purged didn't even enter my mind.
I will submit $80k is far more reasonable than I expected. Roof repair though sub-flooring. Displaced family staying in a hotel during the repair. Yeah that can add up pretty quick.
Some people would jump on this like they won the lottery. "The sky is falling!!! I am scared! Some of the sky hit my house! I need $100 million to feel safe again."
I would have sworn that somewhere I'd seen that NASA originally indicated that it was Japan who was responsible for the batteries because they were the ones who originally sent them up. Perhaps I'm too tired to search properly, all I've found tonight is a comment on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/1c7g45q/comment/l07ryiy/
"We have asked NASA not to apply a different standard towards US citizens or residents, but instead to take care of the Oteros and make them whole.
The next thing you know, the mob will start asking pharma companies to sell medicines to US citizens or residents for the same low price as they get sold for overseas. Maybe gift the Oteros a gratis trip to the ISS instead?
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