4mo ago

[Solved] What are the reasons behind the “no booby-traps” laws in the US? Are there similar laws in Canada?

It just seems so backwards that making a concrete mailbox can get you sued by a jerk that intentionally drove into it. I can understand banning pitfalls and other actual traps, but why passive defensive deterrents? After all, it's not like a bystander accidentally wandering onto your property is going to be injured by a random bolder you placed between your garden and the street.

(Edit): It seems I had a fundamental misunderstanding of US law. Thanks for indulging my curiosity!

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As others have said, the mailbox and booby-trap laws aren't the same thing.
Setting aside basic morality for a second, and strictly from a societal organizational perspective of which is the purpose of law, they're incompatible with the reality of society.
For starters, there is literally nowhere you can put one that society has agreed is off limits in all circumstances forever, which is important because the nature of a trap is that they can survive longer than whoever set it.
Consider your neighbor witnesses you clutch your chest and collapse in your home so they call 911, and the first responders get blasted by a tripwire shotgun. Consider you get hit by a car and die, and your next of kin come to gather your belongings and meet the same fate. Consider you booby trap a basement closet, get dimentia, and your homecare worker gets blasted because you forgot you even did that when you were young and insane rather than merely old and demented.
By nature of a booby trap, you can't foresee who will trip it or why. You've surrendered contextual judgement. It strictly CAN NOT be proportional.
- What if the booby trap had AI though?
  (I'm joking please don't hurt me)
  
  AI you say? Here's 69 million dollars. Make it happen!
- That's a very good point that I hadn't considered. Thank you!
- Well said.

Historically these laws exist because US law is based on English common law. I’d bet a Loonie that they exist in Canada as well for the same historical reason. If you live in a former British colony, it may be worth your time to get a basic understanding of common law.
Duty Owed Trespassers (emphasis mine):
A landowner has no duty to keep premises in a safe condition for the benefit of trespassers. An owner does not possess any duty to a trespasser under the traditional common law view except to abstain from willful or wanton misconduct or entrapment.

Here’s what our actual laws against booby traps entail: "A booby trap may be defined as any concealed or camouflaged device designed to cause bodily injury when triggered by any action of a person making contact with the device. This term includes guns, ammunition, or explosive devices attached to trip wires or other triggering mechanisms, sharpened stakes, nails, spikes, electrical devices, lines or wires with hooks attached, and devices for the production of toxic fumes or gases." https://definitions.uslegal.com/b/booby-traps/
So yeah, actual booby traps are illegal, but a concrete mailbox is not necessarily a booby trap. A lawsuit arguing a concrete mailbox is a booby trap is an attempt to classify it as booby trap, which means it is not currently classified as one.
- Thanks for the information!
- There's a viral video of a person creating booby-trapped parcels for porch-pirates. They steal the parcel which creates mayhem at their house (stink spray, glitter). Can the thief sue the person?
  
  It is not designed to cause bodily injury
  
  In the States, anyone can attempt to sue anyone for anything. Doesn’t mean you’ll win, or that you won’t be countersued, or that you won’t be penalized for wasting the court’s time, all of which should apply to those two examples.
  Our Great Pumpkin President once sued a journalist for a billion dollars because he hurt his feelings. That was not the stated purpose, but his argument was the journalist caused grievous emotional harm. To be clear, much like Trump at the time, the journalist did not have a billion dollars, and the case was thrown out. https://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=8100467&page=1

That doesn’t sound accurate. Plenty of places use ballasts and those are legal. A ballast is a barrier, typically concrete but some are plastic and filled with sand, and they are commonly used to keep cars out of pedestrian spaces. You might not even notice them sometimes, but if you think about what keeps cars off the sidewalk or out of parks, you might notice them.
- The person failed to mention that the guy whose mail box got hit hasn't been successfully sued, just that a lawsuit had been brought against them. Ultimately the person with the mailbox was not held liable. You can watch a video about it here
  As an edit, this case had nothing to do with booby trap laws, so I am not sure why it was used as an example.
  
  I was listing two examples I remembered seeing in YouTube shorts from several different lawyer YouTubers. The only reason I remembered it at all was because there was more than one YouTuber covering similar incidents.
  Thanks for the information, though, I'll give the video you linked a watch.
- aka bollards, like on this website
  https://www.idealshield.com/the-6-most-popular-types-of-bollards/

My understanding is that booby traps, like landmines, harm indiscriminately. i.e. they harm whoever trips them and not a particular target. And they persist until triggered. So in effect you have a time and target independent death lottery.

You can be sued for a lot of things the US. Whether they win their case against you is a separate question.
Are you aware of a case where someone attempted to vandalize a reinforced mailbox, were injured in the process, sued, and won? Were the claims related to booby trapping? Feels like these sorts of sensational cases frequently become stories that stray pretty far from reality.
And yes, Canada also has laws against booby traps.

The concrete mailbox ban isn't there due to a booby trap ban.
There are a lot of regulations regarding what can be near roads as their presence can provide a potential hazard to traffic. This includes a mailbox. Mailboxes are designed to be within the clear zone, the area that needs to be kept clear of obstacles, in order to allow mailmen to deliver mail to them. So, in order for them to be within the clear zone, they have to be designed to break away when hit by a car.
This has nothing to do with the intent of the person hitting the mailbox.

[Solved] … interesting. Not really the type community I expected there to be solved questions in.

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