The article belabors the point a little bit. A deodand was any inanimate object directly linked to a human fatality -- from a runaway cart to a falling branch -- and it was usually condemned and destroyed. (Or surrendered to the King and then sold, depending.)
There was often some hair-splitting involved, but the law of deodands was on the books for hundreds of years in England, and it reflects still older Greek and Hebrew laws where inanimate objects that killed people were cast out or destroyed.
The railways did contribute to the end of the custom. But this is not simply because rail equipment was too expensive to seize or condemn. Richard Posner, in The Problems of Jurisprudence, notes:
> [The law of deodands] eventually became dysfunctional but, as Holmes explained, the old law turned out to have a new use. The victim of a maritime accident may encounter great difficulty in trying to obtain legal redress
directly against the owner of the ship that did the harm, because the
owner may live far away, quite possibly in a foreign jurisdiction. By
analogy to the law of deodands, why not treat the ship itself as the
wrongdoer, and hence let the victim sue the ship in the first port in
which it berths after the accident? Until the suit is resolved, the ship will
not be allowed to leave the port unless the ship's owner or master posts
a bond. In this way the victim can obtain and collect a judgment without
traveling to the owner's domicile. Admiralty law adopted this approach
and still follows it.
The interesting question is: Why were trains supposedly fatal to the law of deodands whereas ships were not?
I think that it has much more to do with the decline of superstition from roughly the second half of the 18th century on -- courts began to view the old law as an irrational relic, and it gradually fell out of legal fashion.
I live in the shadow of the Superstition Mountains. That includes the Lost Dutchman. While such monikers may derive from the mid-18th century, in 2026 we must wait for the Sun to rise beyond the visible horizon of the superstitions until our carbon-based bodies, full of mostly water, can perceive its photons and infrared radiation.
GK Chesterton eschewed superstition, as the Catholic Church has roundly condemned the same foolish and unfounded beliefs of rank-and-file Catholics. Paul the Apostle thundered against “[Stupid] Galatians! Who has bewitched you? … Are you so foolish?” [Gal 3:1–5]
Perhaps the alleged “decline of superstition” during the Enlightenment was, itself, a superstition? A “meta-superstition” that scientism cannot err in its data nor conclusions?
A_D_E_P_T · · focus · HN ↗
There was often some hair-splitting involved, but the law of deodands was on the books for hundreds of years in England, and it reflects still older Greek and Hebrew laws where inanimate objects that killed people were cast out or destroyed.
The railways did contribute to the end of the custom. But this is not simply because rail equipment was too expensive to seize or condemn. Richard Posner, in The Problems of Jurisprudence, notes:
> [The law of deodands] eventually became dysfunctional but, as Holmes explained, the old law turned out to have a new use. The victim of a maritime accident may encounter great difficulty in trying to obtain legal redress directly against the owner of the ship that did the harm, because the owner may live far away, quite possibly in a foreign jurisdiction. By analogy to the law of deodands, why not treat the ship itself as the wrongdoer, and hence let the victim sue the ship in the first port in which it berths after the accident? Until the suit is resolved, the ship will not be allowed to leave the port unless the ship's owner or master posts a bond. In this way the victim can obtain and collect a judgment without traveling to the owner's domicile. Admiralty law adopted this approach and still follows it.
The interesting question is: Why were trains supposedly fatal to the law of deodands whereas ships were not?
I think that it has much more to do with the decline of superstition from roughly the second half of the 18th century on -- courts began to view the old law as an irrational relic, and it gradually fell out of legal fashion.
ButlerianJihad · · focus · HN ↗
GK Chesterton eschewed superstition, as the Catholic Church has roundly condemned the same foolish and unfounded beliefs of rank-and-file Catholics. Paul the Apostle thundered against “[Stupid] Galatians! Who has bewitched you? … Are you so foolish?” [Gal 3:1–5]
Perhaps the alleged “decline of superstition” during the Enlightenment was, itself, a superstition? A “meta-superstition” that scientism cannot err in its data nor conclusions?