The case of “Todd” was raised on Reddit recently. If his friend is to be believed, “Todd” was the target of a serial bully who enjoyed stealing and drinking his Mountain Dew. Eventually the young man decided that enough was enough and that he was going to make the bully drink his urine.
Now, I’m not saying that I believe the story. It sounds like someone’s Legal Studies homework found its way onto Reddit – but the way I see it is this. Unless there is some sort of law in his jurisdiction that specifically forbids the carrying around a bottle of your own urine, he should be in the clear. He obviously suspected that “Brian” would steal his bottle of piss and drink it but he could not be certain that the event in question would take place. Some might argue that “Todd” had a duty of care to inform the aggressor “Brian” that there was urine in the bottle. I would argue that “Todd” has no more obligation to do that than a vehicle owner has to inform a car thief that his or her vehicle does not have working brakes.
Granted the story would be different if the bottle of Mountain Dew contained cyanide and “Brian” died, but it did not and fresh urine is quite sterile (if Bear Grylls is to be believed). I’m calling fake on the whole situation, but it is thought provoking (if not really news worthy).
Fed up with this and being a cunning lad, last Tuesday Todd drinks the mountain dew before class, and pisses in the bottle. Brian drank the piss, shat brix, and Todd emerged the victor that day.
Now, Brian’s family is threating to sue, claiming Todd endangered Brian’s health. Todd’s family is apparently shitting and scrambling to collect character references for Todd from teachers, letters from doctors saying urine isn’t harmful, and generally thinking their son is a psycho.
I applaud Todd and think that he should walk into court holding a bottle of piss, it’s freedom of expression, some people like piss filled bottles, but IANAL.
