I've written a lot about how I refuse to abandon my common sense for Socratic law school thinking. Here's another example:
Every other day, a mass email is sent out by one of my classmates informing everyone that one of the cars in the parking lot has it's lights on. The owner, presumably, scrambles outside to save his or her battery while the hundreds of us that this doesn't effect just delete the email.
Just the other day, I personally noticed that one of the cars in the law school parking lot had it's lights on. Did I send out the typical mass email like everyone else does, confident that providing notice is effective to saving a battery? No, I did not. I walked up to the car like I owned it, opened the front door, leaned inside, and turned the headlights off.
Has this option never occurred to anyone? It's pretty simple, you'd think all the LSAT acers at my school would have figured it out. Sure there's some locked doors out there, but not that many.
Here's what I think happens
Law Student: Maybe I should turn this guy's lights off for him. Would that be criminal trespass? Civil trespass? What if he has a spring-loaded gun like in Katko v. Briney? Is this car an attractive nuisance? I don't have a statute book or my torts outline handy so I'd better just send another mass email.
