Marriage proposal goes sour as rental crane crashes

The most retarded story of the week.

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Reply to
Ignoramus21993
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Ignoramus21993 fired this volley in news:P5ydnS97D snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

Now, I wonder of the BBC's comment that the suitor owes a "whopping insurance bill". Was he the one who rented, drove, and was operating the crane? Doesn't that seem a bit odd? One would ordinarily expect that if "he was to be lifted", that he'd not be in control of the same machine; neh?

LLoyd

Reply to
Lloyd E. Sponenburgh

Let's say that someone rents a crane, with operator, from a crane company, to perform some mundane task, say to lift an air conditioner onto a building. Let's further say that a "mishap" occurred, for example the crane lost the balance and fell, or the rigging hardware failed, and caused damage.

Who is, in the US, liable for this? The renter or the crane company?

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Reply to
Ignoramus21993

Additionally, my read of the story is that they were a lifting a person with a crane. I thought that it was a big no-no.

``A man had rented a crane to drop him into his girlfriend's garden so he could propose in spectacular fashion.''

It was also kind of amazing how, when retrieving the fallen crane, they rigged it wrong AGAIN, and dropped it once more.

If the groom owns the crane company, and is not just a customer, which is what I now suspect, I would strongly advise her to call off the wedding.

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Reply to
Ignoramus21993

From the looks at this one - no outriggers to hold off balance and a slip loop of chain that another crane was providing upwards pressure on the over extended boom. Operator all the way - multiple bad ways to do things. Chain broke and all went south.

Martin

Reply to
Martin Eastburn

That's hard to match, given the sheer amount of pure drivel they "headline" on a daily basis.

What a moron operator. He did that _without_ a load on the machine? "Oh, we won't need the stabilizers for this #200 load." Oops!

I don't even want to know if she turned him down after that.

Reply to
Larry Jaques

If a licensed operator is required, and it is in every state I can think of, he is liable. If he wasn't licensed and the company rented to him, they will share blame. If, on the off chance, licensing wasn't required, the operator would be 100% liable and the company absolved. The suitor is just guilty of bad friends and/or poor judgment.

And the suitor told her "Hey, now that your house is wrecked, you

-have- to marry me and move into my place."

Reply to
Larry Jaques

After you wrote that, I found this other video of it. They did, indeed, have two cranes working on it and a simple chain broke. Outriggers were out, too. I'll bet it wasn't proof chain, or the idiot didn't bolt it anyway.

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The very first picture of the lift situation shows that it was an entirely IFFY thing to begin with. That was an expensive little idea the guy had, wasn't it? Even without the damage.

In the USA, lifting a man with that crane would be illegal, so he couldn't have proposed that way.

Reply to
Larry Jaques

I was studying the break on full-screen and it looks like that was a sling, not a chain. It slipped and the beam started to fall, overcoming the sling's limits. SNAP!

Reply to
Larry Jaques

The truck driver and trucking company!

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Reply to
Ignoramus31800

I hope that the bride turns the groom down. He should not reproduce.

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Reply to
Ignoramus31800

I think that it was a sling, and the problem was that the sling slipped.

Reply to
Ignoramus31800

The crane company.

Not the person who hired the crane company. It does not matter if that person is an idiot or not - he has no legal responsibility to know how to operate a crane safely. That is the duty of the crane company, which is also supposed to hire licensed, competent crane operators.

With luck, this incident will put the crane company out of business.

Joe Gwinn

PS: The proposal of marriage was accepted.

Reply to
Joe Gwinn

Whoever has the most money, and whoever has the most control over the incident.

If a lawyer could show that the crane company is obviously fly-by-night, that the renter knew this and didn't care, then money could possibly be extracted from the renter.

But I would expect that normally it would be the crane company -- particularly if they have a ready pot of money for the lawyers to stick a straw into.

Reply to
Tim Wescott

In the U.S. the liability falls on the crane company and the operator.

For instance I hire you to scrap a tool in MY building. You come in, start work and drive a forklift through the wall of the building. You (or your insurance co.) get to pay for the repairs.

Now if I was the one hired to clear the building and then in turn I subbed out the work to you, then it gets interesting. Thats when liability apportionment comes into play.

Reply to
Steve W.

The flipped truck had a back end on this side outrigger but the front ones were next to the cab. Likely all drunk and just did it on the spot of a idea.

Martin

Reply to
Martin Eastburn

Correct.

i
Reply to
Ignoramus31800

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