Superman v. The Law of Torts (2010)

Okay, quick disclaimer.

1. I know very little about law. I didn’t know what a tort was until I reached
that chapter in my study text 5 days ago. So apologies for misuse of
terminology.
2. Despite enjoying my comics, I’m not big on DC and *GASP* I’ve never read a
Superman comic / book / graphic novel (whatever term floats your boat).
3. I do watch the ‘monstrosity’ that is Smallville. I even enjoy it.

Right, now that’s out of the way hello to you open-minded people who didn’t click the stumble button as soon as I mentioned ‘Smallville’.

So here’s the thing. I consider myself a slowly evolving geek. It started with film when I was 14. A year later I was introduced to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Then, through these obsessions (along with my love of classic rock and metal) I met people that helped heighten my interest in Sci Fi, Horror, Comics and Gaming.

But tonight I managed to reach a new level of geekiness.

How? You may ask.

Through my law revision.

I know, I know. Legal principles are about as geeky as watching Sleepless in Seattle.

But whilst I spent 20 minutes staring at the page on Duty of Care, my brain went for a wander. It wandered all the way to Metropolis.

Despite the fact that my only exposure to Superman has been through:

a) A film I saw about 20 years ago
b) A cheesy tv show from the 1st time Teri Hatcher was considered sexy (before
she banged Bond and became anorexic); and
c) The aforementioned Smallville (which is almost universally agreed to be
unacceptable and definitely not canon)

I found myself considering a question so pointless, so random that I now feel very hypocritical for having, only a week ago, mocked the existence of this article:Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex by Larry Niven.

My query?

Could Superman be sued for negligence? And if so – what action (or non-action) could find him super-speeding round to a lawyer’s?

My study text basically says that a defendant with a particular skill or ability will be expected to exercise that skill in a competent manor.

This may have (and probably has) been covered already, but I’m not sifting through 72 years-worth of comics to find out (I’m not that bad... yet)

So I decided to scribble a couple of hypothetical’s and throw them out to the internet.

Say Superman comes across a building on fire. He blows out the fire, saving the occupants of the building. Yay! Day saved right?

But what about the man driving on the road behind the building at the specific moment Superman blew the fire out? The man who’s car got blown off the road and straight into a petrol/gas station or a brick wall or a shop window etc.

I'm betting you can make a fair bit of cash from suing a person who’s responsible for causing your car to be totalled, putting you in hospital, blowing up your business.

Or,

Say Superman is wandering down thestreet and he sees a woman a block away falling from a 15th story window.

Running a block and catching a person at the bottom of a 15 story fall is not something a 'reasonable man' could be expected to do. No regular guy in Superman's position would be considered in any way negligent for not attempting to save the woman.

But the Man of Steel could certainly manage it.

So would it be negligence if he didn't. If he just kept on walking? (I know, I know. Massively out of character, but this is a hypothetical situation and I'm betting there's been at least one story where Superman decided to quit helping people - there's certainly been enough Smallville eps where Clark Kent screwed up.)

Could the family of the dead woman sue Superman, hold him negligently liable for her death and demand damages?

Now as I said before. I really don’t know all the intricacies of the law, so there may be various defences to these claims.

Would his saving of the people in the burning building outweigh his Duty of Care to the car owner / petrol station owner? If he even has a Duty of Care there.

In the case of the falling woman, would he be held to the same standard as everyone else, or would he have an added layer of expectations due to his abilities? And who could decide just how much should be expected of a superhero? Is this the point that we get into the same territory as Marvel's 'Civil War' series, with various superheros working with the authorities and telling others what they are expected to do and how they should behave?

Is there yet another reason for Superman to keep his real identity a secret?

Because it’s pretty hard to serve a summons to a man who’s faster than a speeding bullet and has no fixed abode or specific place of work.