Top Three Torts I Witnessed on Natural Bridge and Devil’s Marbleyard
Springtime is finally upon us here in Central Virginia—a time for rebirth, renewal, and remembering that you are not actually immune to seasonal depression. Job application stress, grade stress, extracurricular obligation stress, financial stress, current geopolitical affairs stress, midterm stress, and a general miasma of existential dread have had students feeling high-strung and vitamin-D-deficient for weeks. The needs of the Law School are clear: It’s time to get outside, touch some grass, and remember what the sun looks like.
However, before launching yourself whole-hog into enjoying the natural beauty of the Blue Ridge Mountain region this season, you must remember that while you may be able to escape the law building for a short time, you are never safe from Torts. Below are just a few of the tortious situations I identified while out experiencing the wonder of some of our best local natural sights.
Source: Author
1. Intentional Affliction of Emotional Distress
About an hour and a half outside of Charlottesville is a naturally occurring geological formation known as “Natural Bridge.” As the highly descriptive name suggests, the formation is a high limestone arch that was formed through erosion by the creek that runs below it. Think Arches National Park, but capable of sustaining plant life.
My heart thrummed in my chest as I approached the small town of Natural Bridge, Virginia. After weeks and weeks of being beaten down by the doom, gloom, and overwhelmingly rapid commercialization of the world around me, I was finally going to have a day to get out and appreciate the natural world. I had no doubt that this experience was going to give me back my zest for life, even as I passed billboards for shady roadside zoo attractions and something called the “Natty B Cafe.” The time had come at last for me to forget the woes of capitalism and fully immerse myself in-
Oh, son of a *****.
Entry to see the Natural Bridge costs a whopping $9 per person. Truly, the greedy hunger of capitalism knows no bounds. To say I was crushed would be a fair and accurate appraisal of the situation. My emotional state—fragile as it already was—may never recover now. And while this mental anguish may not have been the direct result of an impact to my body, few courts would deny that there has been a very real impact to my wallet.
Additionally, the blast of pure psychological damage I took from reading the name “Natty B Cafe” was enough to constitute a suit in and of itself.
2. Abnormally Dangerous Animal
After a sufficient period of gazing wondrously at the formation and pondering the nature of economics, it was time to explore another beloved geological feature in the area—the Devil’s Marbleyard. A short jaunt up a trail gives hikers access to endless rock scrambling opportunities. Fans of Old Rag’s summit scramble will be enthralled with the Marbleyard’s eight acres of rocky playground.
Having grown up in the West, bugs were never really a concept that occupied much of my mind. The bugs I encountered were small and infrequent. However, hiking in the East has exposed me to a different reality. Not only are there more bugs here than I’ve ever seen before in my life, but there are also insane-looking species that I’m fairly certain were designed by a sadistic middle schooler with unrestricted access to MS Paint.
While scaling the Marbleyard, I was secure in my knowledge that the cold weather we’ve experienced over the past several months would have slowed or halted any freaky bug activity. However, I failed to account for the fact that “sun’s out” almost always means “guns out.” And also apparently “spiders out.” Clinging to the rocks like Cliff Hanger from Between the Lions, I came face to face with an arachnid of untold size. This thing made Jumanji look like a nature documentary. I’m pretty sure I saw it carry off a child. While the Restatements are classically vague on what constitutes an “abnormally dangerous animal,” I thought this thing fit the bill.
Source: Author
3. Negligence
You know her. You love her. She’s the all-arounder, the everyman, the unseasoned graham cracker of Torts. The Devil’s Marbleyard was absolutely littered with it. If my 1L Torts class taught me one thing, it’s that there are a lot of different ways to die in any given situation. Moreover, there are a lot of ways to pin that death on someone else’s negligence. I’ve seen plaintiffs win suits based on the most accidental of incidents. The tiniest of slips. Here, there were tripping hazards galore and not a single guardrail or “caution” sign in sight. Gazing out across the boulder field, I saw an opportunity for injury suits rivaling even tugboats and early 20th-century railroads.
Why, then, would the United States Forest Service leave itself so exposed to litigation? Joy? Whimsy? Preservation of natural wonder and adherence to Leave No Trace principles? Disgusting. The magnificent view of the Appalachians afforded by the hike provided me with only the briefest distraction from the severity of this absolute tortfest.