(no subject)
Feb. 9th, 2009 10:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
theweaselkingWhen neighbors went inside Marvin Schur's house, the windows were frosted over, icicles hung from a faucet, and the 93-year-old World War II veteran lay dead on the bedroom floor in a winter jacket over four layers of clothing.
He froze to death — slowly and painfully, authorities say — days after the electric company installed a power-limiting device because of more than $1,000 in unpaid bills.
He froze to death — slowly and painfully, authorities say — days after the electric company installed a power-limiting device because of more than $1,000 in unpaid bills.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-09 03:30 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-09 03:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-09 04:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-09 04:01 pm (UTC)It's illegal, but then *more illegal* if there's kids?
Do the penalties change?
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-09 04:09 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-09 04:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-09 04:57 pm (UTC)With no power, of course, the oven wouldn't come on. But he didn't notice that.
A different article on the same story mentions that he not only had the money to pay the power bill, he had the bills and the money all put together in envelopes, addressed, stamped, and ready to send. MONTHS WORTH. All he would have had to do was drop them in a mailbox - but his functions were so impaired that he didn't do that.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-09 05:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-09 05:59 pm (UTC)That the utility company left a note rather than knocking on the door to inform him that they'd even installed a power limiting device let alone how to use it, muddies the water a great deal.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-09 06:20 pm (UTC)You can't cut someone off for nonpayment if doing so might make them freeze to death. You especially can't do it without making any attempt to contact them.
In civilised countries, you're legally required to wait until spring - at which point, you can cut them off, and go after them for all the back pay plus interest that you deserve, and you're under no obligation to turn them back on again until they pay up.
The problem here is not "terminated for nonpayment". It is "put senile old man in lifethreatening situation without warning, and, since he was senile, he died."
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-09 07:07 pm (UTC)If they went round to his house, discovered why he wasn't paying, discovered he was sufficiently senile to be a risk to himself and informed the appropriate authorities, who then took him out of there, then they could cut him off.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-09 07:10 pm (UTC)That's my nightmare of old age.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-09 07:31 pm (UTC)But the point remains that it's illegal, in civilised countries, to cut off someone's heat in the winter.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-09 08:21 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-09 09:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-10 06:03 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-10 06:13 am (UTC)1) My grocery metaphor - why does one company have an obligation to fulfill the minimum requirements for life when another does not?
2) Central heating is not essential for life. If my furnace stops working, there's a cast iron stove and a lot of firewood. If that option is not available to me, I will leave the house and go someplace warm. I have a car, and even if I didn't I have neighbours within walking distance who will take me in if necessary. Hell, I have family who grew up in a log cabin with no power or running water just a little bit north of Michigan. There are a lot of things this man could have done that would have resulted in him still being alive - things that he is guaranteed to have known to do given his age. That he failed to do so because of senility is a great tragedy - but that's his failing not the power company's.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-10 12:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-10 12:11 pm (UTC)I'd do some work on that theory, fast. It's.. got a few holes.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-10 02:48 pm (UTC)A) provide you with food to a place where nobody else can,
B) provide the food in advance and accept payment later.
And even then, it doesn't match up, because if you cut off the heat to a modern home in -30 conditions, the house will not be liveable when it warms up because all of the pipes will shatter. Even *if* you're lucky enough to have a fireplace (which not everyone does), or to have somewhere to move out to (which not everyone does), the house will have massive damage as soon as the heat comes back on.
The fact that you have a woodstove that can keep your house warm *and* a car *and* neighbours who will take you in *and* the mental acuity to use them does not mean that everyone has all these things or will be able to use them, or that other consequences that you haven't thought of won't happen, and the bullshit Randroid "I personally could get out of that specific situation so anyone who can't handle all possible similar situations is defective" attitude is a cheap excuse for unthinking selfishness.
When the weather is this cold, heat is not like a grocery store. It is like the emergency room of an American hospital - you WILL get seen and you WILL get treated, no matter that you owe them from last time, and they'll add it to your bill and worry about getting paid for it later.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-10 05:57 pm (UTC)To carry my second point further, there are numerous things this gentleman could have done to avoid the entire problem. He could have mailed in his payments immediately rather than setting them down to mail later, and then forgetting about them. He could have noticed the unmailed envelopes and mailed them immediately before forgetting them again. He could have arranged pre-authorized payment so that he wouldn't need to pay his bills by hand. He could have recognized that his faculties were failing and sought help.
It's tragic that he did none of these things, but those decisions were entirely his.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-10 06:12 pm (UTC)I think this is such a polarized issue that we're never going to agree on it, so we're better off just leaving it alone.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-10 08:09 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-10 08:09 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-10 08:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-10 08:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-10 08:24 pm (UTC)"This senile guy could have just acted rationally!" Doesn't work *because he's senile*.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-11 01:00 pm (UTC)> what is reasonable for a healthy person to do, because THEY ARE SICK. You
> wouldn't expect a paralyzed person to shovel his walk, would you?
...as far as I can tell, yes, that's what
At least until "someone is chosen to shoulder than responsibility" and shovel the walk, it appears to be fuck-you-very-much to the hypothetical paralyzed gentleman in question. And I'm going to go be sick now.