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Show THE READER'S COURTROOM Father's a Fight Fan By Will Bernard, LL.B. May a Father be Held Liable for Encouraging His Sons to Fight? Two brothers, hearing their father arguing with a neighbor, rushed up and gave the neighbor a sound thrashing. The father didn't do any actual fighting, but encouraged his sons with such cries as "Sock him!" "Kill him!" and "Give it to him!" Later, the battered neighbor sued A drunk walked Into a hotel one night and demanded a room. The clerk refused, ordering the man out. One word led to another and a fight ensued. The clerk hurt his wrist in the melee and later sought workmen's compensation for the injury. in-jury. The hotel owner opposed his claim, saying that the clerk hac not been hired to fight with cus-' tomers. However, the court granted the clerk an award anyhow. The judge said the fight had occurred In the course of his work as a clerk, and the injury was covered. . May You Throw Aside Someone Who Blocks your Path? The landlord of an apartment house got mad at the milkman one day and told him to stay out of the building from then on. The next morning, the milkman showed up at his usual time to make deliveries to several tenants who lived in the basement. Angrily, the landlord climbed on top of the basement hatchway to block him from going down the steps. But the milkman all three men for damages. The sons admitted their guilt, but the father insisted that he personally hadn't done anything wrong. However, How-ever, the court held him equally responsible for the attack. The Judge said: "He did everything he could to Incite his sons' anger. Such conduct made him an active participant in the assault and equally liable for the damage done." While leaving a man's house one morning, a doctor overheard his patient threatening to punch his wife in the jaw! A few weeks later, the man was arrested on a wife-beating wife-beating charge, and the doctor was summoned to the witness stand to tell what he had heard. The husband's hus-band's lawyer objected that a doctor doc-tor cannot reveal anything said by his patient, but the court disagreed and allowed the doctor to tell his atory. The judge said that a doctor's doc-tor's lips are sealed only as to matters mat-ters confided professionally. would not be halted. Seizing one of the hatch doors he jerked it up- ' ward throwing the landlord against ! the railing. The landlord was in- j jured, and later sued the milkman for damages. However the court re- ! jectei the landlord's claim, point- ' ing out that the tenants' milkman ' had just as much right to enter the building as the tenants themselves i "Having tins right." said the judge, "the milkman also had the right to remove any obstruction-including obstruction-including the landlord'" |