05-06-2016, 09:59 AM
(05-06-2016, 08:49 AM)xxlt Wrote: Common sense, the procedure of literally every cemetery I have ever seen (I lived by one for years and never saw the gates there or at any other unlocked from dusk to well after dawn), and almost certainly the law.
The law does not require the cemetery to lock their gates, or for that matter have gates. The gates intent at cemeteries have never been about protecting people from driving on their roads, it is about keeping people out from desecrating graves hence why they have been done long before the invention of cars. Just because the roads were dark does not make the cemetery liable as all modern cars are equipped with lights and by law those lights must be used at night. If it is reasonable to assume the roads can be navigated by a person who is not intoxicated at normal speeds (My guess is there had never been a driving accident there before), then the facts of this case would show they are not liable for the driver as he was the sole reason those conditions were made worse through excessive speeds and intoxication.
Now with all that said, I can totally see them being liable based on the caretaker being an extension of the cemetery. However, let's move off the whole gates should have been closed and bad driving conditions argument as they just don't hold water.
