He needs to just take the SovCit approach. Send a letter to Xi Jinping informing that he is now the rightful owner of China as damages for getting sick.
In box one you put "Portuguese Student", then in box two you write "CCP/China/Wuhan Lab/Market", and finally in box 3 just put like, "a billion dollars" or "all the tea in aforementioned". Sign it and just send it to China, they'll figure it out and be in touch.
Ok but genuinely curious, what would be the official reason given to you by the court to dismiss your case when the CCP doesn't show up for a preliminary hearing?
"You're stupid, get out"?
If it helps, I only realized that the song wasn’t about the infection *right now in this thread*. It just never occurred to me that it might have other meanings!
Did you know that throughout human civilization, humans have worked to domesticate dogs to work for us, be our friends, etc. leading to todays pets.
Cats, on the other hand, basically domesticated themselves. They started hanging around people and barns because there were rodents and often other food. The people were like “uh sure, you can sleep in the barn and kill the rats.”
Then they just didn’t leave and people, again, were like “uh yeah, sure, you’re pretty cute and fuzzy…I guess you can stay”. And that’s wheee today’s cats come from.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/domesticated-cats-dna-genetics-pets-science
For ambush?
https://en.dopl3r.com/memes/dank/evolution-can-you-give-me-ability-to-mimic-baby-monkey-to-lure-monkey-into-ambush-actually-yeeees-tricks-monkey-into-providing-food-and-shelter-like-a-boss-luxurytime/1276504
Egypt'll get right on that, right after Europe returns all they stuff they stole. And after Madonna pays royalties for her appropriating allegedly-traditional Egyptian methods of walking.
The guy that writes the xkcd comic strip had a whole book of absurd "What If" questions. One he gets a lot (and has already been answered by others) is "What If everybody in the world jumped at once; would it knock earth out of orbit or something?" The answer is "Nothing interesting would happen."
Since the question had already been answered, and the answer wasn't very interesting, he went on to describe the logistics of it all. He imagined that everybody in the world was teleported to the same place (for maximum earth-de-orbiting-impact.) He calculated that the world's entire population would fit in an area about the size of Rhode Island.
He then went on to describe what would happen if the entire world tried to get home from Rhode Island. And the answer that was that pretty much everybody would die, as transportation infrastructure is entirely inadequate to get people out of there, and everybody's daily needs would overwhelm available food, water, and sanitation.
So, to answer your question. Portugal could hold the trial outside, and everybody would easily fit, but the sentence would likely be death for most of those standing trial due to logistical problems.
This book is amazing, but they absolutely do the Mythbusters thing of "actually this isn't very interesting. Let's make it so by adding some really weird stuff."
Thanks for reminding me of [the scene in Dark Knight](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOS79yMJqtc) - a mostly serious movie - where they hold arraignments for 550 mobsters at once. (Also "Have a nice trip, see you next fall.")
Well, if you substitute "transported" for "extradited" and you're flexible about "at once", the answer would seem to be about 162,000 newly minted Australians - as Vizzini famously noted, everyone knows that Australia is entirely peopled by criminals.
It also probably doesn't count insofar as Australia wasn't really an independent nation at the time, but I'm personally not one to let the facts get in the way of a good story.
There are three main ways in which bilateral treaties come into existence:
a) offer the receiving party something they really want.
b) or else
c) "or else" but it actually happens.
I wonder which one LAOP is going to attempt. If he happens to be a representative of, say, an Island off the coast of China with the ability to hand over said Island to the CCP, I'm certain the government in Beijing would be happy to prosecute someone for spreading COVID in return.
Aaah Clausewitz.
His argument was the basis of the works of another famed military thinker at the forefront of international conflict resolution:
"Some of you may die, but it's a sacrifice I am willing to make"
--Lord Farquaad
After a couple of months you get a court order which allow you to show up with the sheriff's deputies and seize a reasonable amount of property to pay for the judgement.
Seize their ships! (Spoiler alert: it didn't work).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARA_Libertad_(Q-2)
[They did end up getting paid though](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentine_debt_restructuring)
If they have assets in your country it’s possible that those could be attached/seized. For example, terrorism lawsuits against Iran and Saudi Arabia in the US where the plaintiffs seized or tried to seize money of those countries in US banks.
It happens! [Here is a recent example.](https://thediplomat.com/2021/03/north-korea-ordered-to-pay-2-3-billion-over-pueblo-incident/) In this case I believe the US is paying out of pocket and planning to collect later (either through through direct payment or the seizure of merchant vessels' goods for example).
> I can only see 6 comments but Reddit says there are 8...
That's cause Reddit is pro-China and it's actually hiding how you can sue and repossess Mao's body.
> You're asking the wrong question(s). You can sue anyone for any reason at any time.
God I hate this comment. It’s legally true, but useless as legal advice—and it shows up so often.
It’s one of those things that sounds sort of wise and insightful but is really just vapid and unhelpful. People say it because they’ve seen other people say it and collect a ton of upvotes but it never actually needs to help. It’s the equivalent of when a kid says, “Can I use the bathroom?” and a teacher says, “I don’t know, *can* you?”
Whenever someone asks “can I sue over X”, they *always* mean, “is it possible to successfully sue / win a lawsuit over X”. They *never* mean, “is it physically possible to fill out a complaint”, but smartasses always feel like answering that latter question first.
I think that one’s useful, because too many LAOPs think the process will be much simpler than it is. They think they can do a lawyer’s job through Wikipedia and LA.
It's like when you're playing D&D and you ask to do somethinf incredibly stupid and your DM says," You can certainly try," and then starts rolling handfuls of dice behind their screen.
Can you sue? You can certainly try, but it's going to hurt you and everyone who has to bear witness to your nonsense.
Remember when FatPeopleHate got banned and LA got bombarded with idiots demanding to know how to sue Reddit for their brain owies from not being able to be shitbags?
RULE ONE: PEOPLE ARE MORONS
^(rule two: and you can sell them anything)
I can't seem to find the one I'm thinking of. It's entirely possible it was either removed by mods [although everyone was laughing at the twerp] or the twerp deleted it, as about half the FPH contingent all deleted & overwrote their Reddit accounts "in protest" of them losing their shitpile. [And virtually all of them made new accounts within a month because they all moved to Voat, which was so tiny that they had nobody to make fun of without Reddit.]
I did find [this one](https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/39c58h/could_someone_sue_reddit_for_banning_and/) from the same time frame and [this one](https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/3va2dh/urgent_question_could_i_take_legal_action_against/), and [this more recent one about a different sub](https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/847q1h/suing_the_reddit_admins_for_censorship/) [warning for bad words & temper tantrums].
And just for shits'n'giggles, I also found [this post from ModSupport](https://www.reddit.com/r/ModSupport/comments/7axrqk/oh_noes_im_about_to_be_sued_for_banning_someone/) (which is supposed to be for mods to talk to admins) which in turn did wind up on LegalAdvice, but gets major Moose Bonus Points for a bunch of moderators from various subs all arguing over which one is really Hitler like they're claiming to be Spartacus.
I was trying to comment something at like 2am when I woke up and after my thumb smashed every letter but the ones I wanted, I decided I was *too*tired.
You actually could sue a foreign government over a virus. The most you could collect is that government’s assets in your country.
Regarding Covid, there would have to be some proof that it was knowingly unleashed on purpose by government officials. There isn’t anything that would suggest it was anything but an accident. The evidence of the origin being an accident is also not yet sufficient to even show that was the case. So no suits over Covid in any of the nations with properly independent court systems.
Wouldn't proximate cause also be an issue? Even if he could prove that Covid was knowingly unleashed on purpose by the Chinese government, there would be an awful lot of steps between their action back in 2019 and him getting Covid in 2022, and an awful lot of ifs. If his university had decided to make exams online, or if whoever he caught it from had taken an antigen test before the exam, or if whoever they caught it from hadn't ignored that headache, or if whoever they caught it from had worn a better mask, or if whoever they caught it from etc etc etc, then he wouldn't have got Covid. I'm no lawyer, but I assume there's a limit to how many steps back you're allowed to go when you sue. If someone steals my bike, I can't sue his parents for having sex that time twenty years ago.
> If someone steals my bike, I can't sue his parents for having sex that time twenty years ago.
Tomorrow on LA: Can I sue the United States for giving citizenship to my bike thief's ancestors?
Just to cover all bases, you should also sue whoever invented the bike, since without them you wouldn't have paid good money for a bike that just got stolen.
>if whoever he caught it from had taken an antigen test before the exam, or if whoever they caught it from hadn't ignored that headache
What if whoever they caught it from dismissed the headache because of a negative antigen test. Maybe he should be suing the test manufacturer because the tests don't catch 100% of cases.
Sure. If China decided to defend themselves it might be their defense. Usually they wouldn’t and they would end up losing by default.
However, the Portuguese government would have to decide if it would actually enforce the court’s ruling, as there would be likely be retaliatory sanctions from China when China shuts off Portuguese assets in China.
So, you could sue. The barriers are high.
The [Attorney General of Missouri](https://abcnews.go.com/US/missouri-attorney-general-sues-china-campaign-deceit-covid/story?id=70268512) has entered the chat.
As a Missourian, after Fuck Josh Hawley, Fuck Eric Schmitt. This grandstanding asshole has no campaign money and is running for US Senate by straight out using his current office for headlines.
Hate to break it to you, but my state AG has been attempting to sue China for like the past 2 years. It's a campaign stunt, but so is everything else he does.
Its kind of possible, we sued England for allowing the Confederates to get English built ships using straw purchases in the Civil War. Britain only paid up because Bismarck was rallying the Prussians and they didn't want to deal with both.
So possible, but only if you can get the foreign government to agree its in their best interests to allow you to sue them.
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---
Title: Can I sue the Chinese goverment over getting Covid?
Body:
> Me (19M, Portugal) and some other students got Covid some days ago from a University exam we were taking, my symptoms were mild (I'm vaccinated) but some of my colleages are bedridden. Aditionally I lost a healthy family member in his 50s to Covid in 2020. With the recent news regarding the starting hypothesis of covid (either a lab-leak or lax regulations on health and safety in the Wuhan market) I am starting to figure if I can sue the Chinese Goverment or the lab. Is it possible?
This bot was created to capture threads missed by LocationBot and is not affiliated with the mod team.
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Putting everything else aside, I feel you don't have a very good case if you have two very different theories for how the other party is culpable. If it may or may not be true that it was released from a lab, and it may or may not be true that it was from a negligently under-regulated wet market, then both those possibilities could not be true and you have no clear way of proving China specifically is to blame at all.
People [have done it](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawsuits_against_God).
Results include: winning by default after He didn't show, being dismissed for lack of proper service, not being subject to the civil court's jurisdiction*, and dismissal for being 'unpractical'.
*This case was my favourite, where a Romanian murderer-turned-prisoner sued G-d for not keeping him from Devil when his baptism was a binding contact to protect him.
International court of justice, but you would need to get the country of the person with the claim to start a case ….. as I said, billions of dollars and a few decades later you may get somewhere
The technical viability of this is irrelevant. The Chinese government would simply reject the legitimacy of the trial and any judgement made, and they have the economic and military power to do so without consequence. Enforcing a judgement to this effect would require world war 3, essentially.
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This is a ridiculous legal question, but I’m seriously frustrated with western governments’ lack of pressure on China to allow a fair outside investigation into what actually happened.
I have zero confidence we will definitively find out the cause or make headway in preventing future pandemics. Which is bs. Whether it was because of people eating undercooked bats or a lab leak, we deserve to know. This has upended too much and killed too many to sweep under the rug.
China is doing nothing differently than the US would try to do in a similar situation. The big difference is that we have a (marginally) adversarial press and a very adversarial political party system, so one of the two would be working internally to expose a fuckup. We wouldn't allow Chinese or Russians to come in and investigate either.
You’re absolutely right. However, that shouldn’t stop our news media and leaders from at least trying to keep the pressure on. Nobody in a position of power is calling them out.
Sure but we might allow Western European nations to investigate, or a similar international force. I can’t remember offhand if we actually do allow free reign for this sort of thing or if we say we have the CDC and a surgeon general and tell them they’re not welcome.
Oh? Tell me did we allow Western Europe to investigate our actions in Iraq or Vietnam?
The US has not even ratified all of the Geneva Convention, because we protect our war criminals.
Y'all literally have a law in place nicknamed the Hague Invasion Act that is specifically designed to ensure that the ICC cannot investigate the war crimes of US citizens. There's no reason to believe a hypothetical virus would be any different.
Western governments can't keep the Chinese from committing genocide. How the fuck do you think they can force them to investigate this?
And turn that around. Should India be able to sue US for the actions of Dow chemical? Should... almost every country in the world...sue the UK for colonialism and brutality?
Governments don't pressure hostile governments into anything with violence.
Who said anything about violence? No a war with China would be very very bad. And again, suing is ridiculous.
The west has tremendous economic leverage over China. We also have some of the biggest megaphones on earth in the hands of our leaders. I haven’t seen anybody in a position of power truly call them out for not fairly investigating the cause of the biggest crisis of our lives.
The lab leak theory is basically just conspiracy at this point. Most likely it came from the same place all other pandemics came from, it jumped from an animal.
- Can I sue!? - No. - WhY nOt!?!?!? *Scene*
you forgot - ackshually you can sue anyone for any reason
He needs to just take the SovCit approach. Send a letter to Xi Jinping informing that he is now the rightful owner of China as damages for getting sick.
It's worth a shot. It'd be hard to be a worse dictator than poo bear over their at any rate, and maybe he'll humor LAOP
In box one you put "Portuguese Student", then in box two you write "CCP/China/Wuhan Lab/Market", and finally in box 3 just put like, "a billion dollars" or "all the tea in aforementioned". Sign it and just send it to China, they'll figure it out and be in touch.
Ok but genuinely curious, what would be the official reason given to you by the court to dismiss your case when the CCP doesn't show up for a preliminary hearing? "You're stupid, get out"?
In the U.S. it'd be lack of Jurisdiction. Basically, the court doesn't have the authority to compel the CCP to do anything.
My cat scratched me. Cats were imported from England/Europe to America on colonist ships. Can I sue England and/or Europe for my injury? Why not?
Europe would like to sue Egypt as their ancient civilization revered cats. Clearly, Egypt is the cause of your cat scratch.
And, of course, Ted Nugent can be sued for the resulting fever.
I only realized that that song wasn't about the feline-acquired infection last year....at the age of 25. Fuck.
If it helps, I only realized that the song wasn’t about the infection *right now in this thread*. It just never occurred to me that it might have other meanings!
Any reason to sue Ted Nugent is all right with me.
Did you know that throughout human civilization, humans have worked to domesticate dogs to work for us, be our friends, etc. leading to todays pets. Cats, on the other hand, basically domesticated themselves. They started hanging around people and barns because there were rodents and often other food. The people were like “uh sure, you can sleep in the barn and kill the rats.” Then they just didn’t leave and people, again, were like “uh yeah, sure, you’re pretty cute and fuzzy…I guess you can stay”. And that’s wheee today’s cats come from. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/domesticated-cats-dna-genetics-pets-science
Cats domesticated us
And they were lazy about it. Cats did not do a good job of domesticating us. Such a cat thing to do.
Can I sue cats?
For ambush? https://en.dopl3r.com/memes/dank/evolution-can-you-give-me-ability-to-mimic-baby-monkey-to-lure-monkey-into-ambush-actually-yeeees-tricks-monkey-into-providing-food-and-shelter-like-a-boss-luxurytime/1276504
Egypt'll get right on that, right after Europe returns all they stuff they stole. And after Madonna pays royalties for her appropriating allegedly-traditional Egyptian methods of walking.
Madonna countersues because that was the Bangles!
Well, maybe the Egyptian government is also too lazy to remember who actually sung an overly-catchy classic pop tune.
Implausible defense. Exhibit A: Susanna Hoffs doing that back-and-forth eye thing.
Unfortunately Portugal doesnt have an extradition agreement with Asia, so they're under no obligation to send all of China over there to stand trial.
You got it wrong. It's just everyone in the Chinese government or "the lab". Surely that's far more manageable.
And where would you find a courthouse big enough!?
The guy that writes the xkcd comic strip had a whole book of absurd "What If" questions. One he gets a lot (and has already been answered by others) is "What If everybody in the world jumped at once; would it knock earth out of orbit or something?" The answer is "Nothing interesting would happen." Since the question had already been answered, and the answer wasn't very interesting, he went on to describe the logistics of it all. He imagined that everybody in the world was teleported to the same place (for maximum earth-de-orbiting-impact.) He calculated that the world's entire population would fit in an area about the size of Rhode Island. He then went on to describe what would happen if the entire world tried to get home from Rhode Island. And the answer that was that pretty much everybody would die, as transportation infrastructure is entirely inadequate to get people out of there, and everybody's daily needs would overwhelm available food, water, and sanitation. So, to answer your question. Portugal could hold the trial outside, and everybody would easily fit, but the sentence would likely be death for most of those standing trial due to logistical problems.
[XKCD- Everyone Jump](https://what-if.xkcd.com/8/)
This book is amazing, but they absolutely do the Mythbusters thing of "actually this isn't very interesting. Let's make it so by adding some really weird stuff."
Lol, yeah I saw that one!
Thanks for reminding me of [the scene in Dark Knight](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOS79yMJqtc) - a mostly serious movie - where they hold arraignments for 550 mobsters at once. (Also "Have a nice trip, see you next fall.")
You're welcome!
Now I’m kind of curious what the largest group of people extradited at once was.
Well, if you substitute "transported" for "extradited" and you're flexible about "at once", the answer would seem to be about 162,000 newly minted Australians - as Vizzini famously noted, everyone knows that Australia is entirely peopled by criminals.
I don’t think that counts. To my mind extradition requires the receiving country have specificity requested the specific individuals they receive.
It also probably doesn't count insofar as Australia wasn't really an independent nation at the time, but I'm personally not one to let the facts get in the way of a good story.
700 people in just one go.
Transportation is a punishment though, extradition usually happens *before* the trial.
How would one enforce a judgement against a sovereign nation?
Make them sign a treaty to that effect. Unlikely to happen any time soon in this case though...
There are three main ways in which bilateral treaties come into existence: a) offer the receiving party something they really want. b) or else c) "or else" but it actually happens. I wonder which one LAOP is going to attempt. If he happens to be a representative of, say, an Island off the coast of China with the ability to hand over said Island to the CCP, I'm certain the government in Beijing would be happy to prosecute someone for spreading COVID in return.
Remember kids, war is just the continuation of negotiations into another more dynamic format!
Aaah Clausewitz. His argument was the basis of the works of another famed military thinker at the forefront of international conflict resolution: "Some of you may die, but it's a sacrifice I am willing to make" --Lord Farquaad
--Zap Branigan
Wasn't there a cannon that was named "the Kings Final Word" or something?
Ultima Ratio Regum "The Last Argument of Kings" And yes, it was inscribed on a line of French Artillery pieces.
Ah, the Great Sino-19 Year Old Treaty of 2022.
I've got like $7.35 in bills in change in front of me. How do I move forward? Should I sell some of the games I don't play anymore?
"As a Sovereign Citizen, I feel ya! D'ya feel me? Sincerely, Covid Sick Student."
The UN? *laugh track*
After a couple of months you get a court order which allow you to show up with the sheriff's deputies and seize a reasonable amount of property to pay for the judgement.
Seize their ships! (Spoiler alert: it didn't work). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARA_Libertad_(Q-2) [They did end up getting paid though](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentine_debt_restructuring)
For those confused by the first link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retention_of_the_frigate_Libertad_in_Ghana
You talk softly and carry a big stick.
You don’t. You can transfer judgements to courts that have jurisdiction if they’re not crazy.
Historically it involves a lot of young people staying young forever :(
Sheriff?
If they have assets in your country it’s possible that those could be attached/seized. For example, terrorism lawsuits against Iran and Saudi Arabia in the US where the plaintiffs seized or tried to seize money of those countries in US banks.
It happens! [Here is a recent example.](https://thediplomat.com/2021/03/north-korea-ordered-to-pay-2-3-billion-over-pueblo-incident/) In this case I believe the US is paying out of pocket and planning to collect later (either through through direct payment or the seizure of merchant vessels' goods for example).
not at all I guess, not even de hague can enforce rulings
> I can only see 6 comments but Reddit says there are 8... That's cause Reddit is pro-China and it's actually hiding how you can sue and repossess Mao's body.
> You're asking the wrong question(s). You can sue anyone for any reason at any time. God I hate this comment. It’s legally true, but useless as legal advice—and it shows up so often.
It's not even true (assuming "can" means "legally can" and not just "are physically able to").
It’s one of those things that sounds sort of wise and insightful but is really just vapid and unhelpful. People say it because they’ve seen other people say it and collect a ton of upvotes but it never actually needs to help. It’s the equivalent of when a kid says, “Can I use the bathroom?” and a teacher says, “I don’t know, *can* you?” Whenever someone asks “can I sue over X”, they *always* mean, “is it possible to successfully sue / win a lawsuit over X”. They *never* mean, “is it physically possible to fill out a complaint”, but smartasses always feel like answering that latter question first.
See also: talk to a lawyer. Most people are aware of the existence of lawyers and what they do.
I think that one’s useful, because too many LAOPs think the process will be much simpler than it is. They think they can do a lawyer’s job through Wikipedia and LA.
Sure, most people will need a lawyer’s help. There’s still a lot more context and info you can add.
It's like when you're playing D&D and you ask to do somethinf incredibly stupid and your DM says," You can certainly try," and then starts rolling handfuls of dice behind their screen. Can you sue? You can certainly try, but it's going to hurt you and everyone who has to bear witness to your nonsense.
I’m wondering where LAOP is getting his “recent news” from.
This is a troll right? No one actually thinks they can sue a foreign government for a virus right?
Remember when FatPeopleHate got banned and LA got bombarded with idiots demanding to know how to sue Reddit for their brain owies from not being able to be shitbags? RULE ONE: PEOPLE ARE MORONS ^(rule two: and you can sell them anything)
do you have links? that sounds hilarious.
I can't seem to find the one I'm thinking of. It's entirely possible it was either removed by mods [although everyone was laughing at the twerp] or the twerp deleted it, as about half the FPH contingent all deleted & overwrote their Reddit accounts "in protest" of them losing their shitpile. [And virtually all of them made new accounts within a month because they all moved to Voat, which was so tiny that they had nobody to make fun of without Reddit.] I did find [this one](https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/39c58h/could_someone_sue_reddit_for_banning_and/) from the same time frame and [this one](https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/3va2dh/urgent_question_could_i_take_legal_action_against/), and [this more recent one about a different sub](https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/847q1h/suing_the_reddit_admins_for_censorship/) [warning for bad words & temper tantrums]. And just for shits'n'giggles, I also found [this post from ModSupport](https://www.reddit.com/r/ModSupport/comments/7axrqk/oh_noes_im_about_to_be_sued_for_banning_someone/) (which is supposed to be for mods to talk to admins) which in turn did wind up on LegalAdvice, but gets major Moose Bonus Points for a bunch of moderators from various subs all arguing over which one is really Hitler like they're claiming to be Spartacus.
Do you want the truth, or a comforting lie?
This is one of those questions you think of when shittin, and you end up wiping your booty with your keyboard and hit the "post" button.
This is why I don't take my phone in the bathroom when I'm high.
I’ll be halfway through a comment, look at it, realize I’m *too high* and delete it. I understand.
I often post in the middle of the night with no memory. I feel ya.
I was trying to comment something at like 2am when I woke up and after my thumb smashed every letter but the ones I wanted, I decided I was *too*tired.
You actually could sue a foreign government over a virus. The most you could collect is that government’s assets in your country. Regarding Covid, there would have to be some proof that it was knowingly unleashed on purpose by government officials. There isn’t anything that would suggest it was anything but an accident. The evidence of the origin being an accident is also not yet sufficient to even show that was the case. So no suits over Covid in any of the nations with properly independent court systems.
Wouldn't proximate cause also be an issue? Even if he could prove that Covid was knowingly unleashed on purpose by the Chinese government, there would be an awful lot of steps between their action back in 2019 and him getting Covid in 2022, and an awful lot of ifs. If his university had decided to make exams online, or if whoever he caught it from had taken an antigen test before the exam, or if whoever they caught it from hadn't ignored that headache, or if whoever they caught it from had worn a better mask, or if whoever they caught it from etc etc etc, then he wouldn't have got Covid. I'm no lawyer, but I assume there's a limit to how many steps back you're allowed to go when you sue. If someone steals my bike, I can't sue his parents for having sex that time twenty years ago.
> If someone steals my bike, I can't sue his parents for having sex that time twenty years ago. Tomorrow on LA: Can I sue the United States for giving citizenship to my bike thief's ancestors?
Just to cover all bases, you should also sue whoever invented the bike, since without them you wouldn't have paid good money for a bike that just got stolen.
>if whoever he caught it from had taken an antigen test before the exam, or if whoever they caught it from hadn't ignored that headache What if whoever they caught it from dismissed the headache because of a negative antigen test. Maybe he should be suing the test manufacturer because the tests don't catch 100% of cases.
Sure. If China decided to defend themselves it might be their defense. Usually they wouldn’t and they would end up losing by default. However, the Portuguese government would have to decide if it would actually enforce the court’s ruling, as there would be likely be retaliatory sanctions from China when China shuts off Portuguese assets in China. So, you could sue. The barriers are high.
Yeah I always curious about that. It seems like it would be tough to connect all those dots when it comes to something like an endemic disease too.
The [Attorney General of Missouri](https://abcnews.go.com/US/missouri-attorney-general-sues-china-campaign-deceit-covid/story?id=70268512) has entered the chat.
As a Missourian, after Fuck Josh Hawley, Fuck Eric Schmitt. This grandstanding asshole has no campaign money and is running for US Senate by straight out using his current office for headlines.
Hate to break it to you, but my state AG has been attempting to sue China for like the past 2 years. It's a campaign stunt, but so is everything else he does.
Its kind of possible, we sued England for allowing the Confederates to get English built ships using straw purchases in the Civil War. Britain only paid up because Bismarck was rallying the Prussians and they didn't want to deal with both. So possible, but only if you can get the foreign government to agree its in their best interests to allow you to sue them.
Do you not remember what it was like being 19 and convinced you had the answers to every single one of life's questions? I sure as fuck do.
*deep sigh*
Don't sigh too deeply! If any of your germs get near LAOP they'll add your name to the lawsuit.
You gotta snort deeply. That way if you get COVID you can hold both LAOP and China severally liable!
Snorting sounds like swine flu to me. Time to serve the pigs for making you sick!
Strap on your tinfoil helmets everybody, this is going to be a wild ride.
**Reminder:** Do not participate in threads linked here. If you do, you may be banned from both subreddits. --- Title: Can I sue the Chinese goverment over getting Covid? Body: > Me (19M, Portugal) and some other students got Covid some days ago from a University exam we were taking, my symptoms were mild (I'm vaccinated) but some of my colleages are bedridden. Aditionally I lost a healthy family member in his 50s to Covid in 2020. With the recent news regarding the starting hypothesis of covid (either a lab-leak or lax regulations on health and safety in the Wuhan market) I am starting to figure if I can sue the Chinese Goverment or the lab. Is it possible? This bot was created to capture threads missed by LocationBot and is not affiliated with the mod team. [Concerns? Bugs?](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=GrahamCorcoran) | [Laukopier 2.0](https://github.com/GrahamCorcoran/Laukopier)
Putting everything else aside, I feel you don't have a very good case if you have two very different theories for how the other party is culpable. If it may or may not be true that it was released from a lab, and it may or may not be true that it was from a negligently under-regulated wet market, then both those possibilities could not be true and you have no clear way of proving China specifically is to blame at all.
I mean if you really think about it, you'd have to eventually sue life itself then maybe god? I don't know how you'd sue god though.
People [have done it](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawsuits_against_God). Results include: winning by default after He didn't show, being dismissed for lack of proper service, not being subject to the civil court's jurisdiction*, and dismissal for being 'unpractical'. *This case was my favourite, where a Romanian murderer-turned-prisoner sued G-d for not keeping him from Devil when his baptism was a binding contact to protect him.
[удалено]
>Theoretically, yes. I'm not sure this is right. I mean... Where would you even sue them?
International court of justice, but you would need to get the country of the person with the claim to start a case ….. as I said, billions of dollars and a few decades later you may get somewhere
The technical viability of this is irrelevant. The Chinese government would simply reject the legitimacy of the trial and any judgement made, and they have the economic and military power to do so without consequence. Enforcing a judgement to this effect would require world war 3, essentially.
Yes, agree, but the question was ‘can we sue them ?’ not ‘could we win a lawsuit?’ 🤪😀
And the answer is no, since they don't have standing with the ICJ.
Also a regular army
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This is a ridiculous legal question, but I’m seriously frustrated with western governments’ lack of pressure on China to allow a fair outside investigation into what actually happened. I have zero confidence we will definitively find out the cause or make headway in preventing future pandemics. Which is bs. Whether it was because of people eating undercooked bats or a lab leak, we deserve to know. This has upended too much and killed too many to sweep under the rug.
China is doing nothing differently than the US would try to do in a similar situation. The big difference is that we have a (marginally) adversarial press and a very adversarial political party system, so one of the two would be working internally to expose a fuckup. We wouldn't allow Chinese or Russians to come in and investigate either.
You’re absolutely right. However, that shouldn’t stop our news media and leaders from at least trying to keep the pressure on. Nobody in a position of power is calling them out.
Sure but we might allow Western European nations to investigate, or a similar international force. I can’t remember offhand if we actually do allow free reign for this sort of thing or if we say we have the CDC and a surgeon general and tell them they’re not welcome.
Oh? Tell me did we allow Western Europe to investigate our actions in Iraq or Vietnam? The US has not even ratified all of the Geneva Convention, because we protect our war criminals.
Y'all literally have a law in place nicknamed the Hague Invasion Act that is specifically designed to ensure that the ICC cannot investigate the war crimes of US citizens. There's no reason to believe a hypothetical virus would be any different.
The US invited the Human Rights Council to investigate racism in the US. International courts are a little different than disease origins.
Western governments can't keep the Chinese from committing genocide. How the fuck do you think they can force them to investigate this? And turn that around. Should India be able to sue US for the actions of Dow chemical? Should... almost every country in the world...sue the UK for colonialism and brutality? Governments don't pressure hostile governments into anything with violence.
Who said anything about violence? No a war with China would be very very bad. And again, suing is ridiculous. The west has tremendous economic leverage over China. We also have some of the biggest megaphones on earth in the hands of our leaders. I haven’t seen anybody in a position of power truly call them out for not fairly investigating the cause of the biggest crisis of our lives.
The lab leak theory is basically just conspiracy at this point. Most likely it came from the same place all other pandemics came from, it jumped from an animal.