Could this hypothetical situation be considered grounds for an entrapment suit?

Maybe a stub or two but a leg to stand on? Doubtful

There may be a suit there. I lived in southern Virginia awhile back and my tool box was stolen from my shed. I then rigged up the handle and lock so that they had a 120 Volt charge. I also put up a sign warning that the door was electrified.

A police friend of mine warned me to disconnect the death trap because it is illegal to set a trap for burglars. Apparently the police don’t care about petty theft but you are not allowed to kill a petty thief.

Well, you have to ask yourself this question….would the burglar have suffered any physical damages, if he had not broken the law and illegaly gained entry into your house?

No.

Frivilous lawsuit at best and not court-worthy.

Extra Information: farmer in Kansas owned many acres of land and had one small shed building on it, a place out of the sun to eat lunch. He did keep a portable radion inside the shed to listen to the weather forecast. On four occasions, has shed had been broken into and his radio taken. Being thoroughly disgusted, he arranged a shotgun trap, aimed at the front door, so the next burglar would be a dead one.

Sure enough, it happended just this way. A teenager, riding a motorcycle, was the victim. He died and his parents sued the Kansas farmer.

His parents won the lawsuit, based on entrapment causing a deadly injury.

His parents were awarded the farmers land and everything on it.

Deadly entrapment is a law violation and can be expensive.

@john65pennington does that mean that we can now trap them?

No. the key is deadly entrapment. One would assume to be shot with a shotgun would cause a deadly injury.

@john65pennington o.k. I can’t electrocute them but can I use a bear trap? I feel a great need to cause burglars and home invaders bodily harm. So if I can’t kill them can I at least torture them a little?

Entrapment is part of criminal law, not civil law, and occurs when an officer of the law induces someone to a commit a crime that would not have been committed without said inducement. As such, this cannot be grounds for an entrapment suit. There have been plenty of cases where criminals have successfully sued their intended victims after injuring themselves while breaking and entering, but they are pretty far in the past. The pendulum has swung in the other direction, and it is now difficult to successfully sue someone even if they use excessive force in removing you from their home. As such, I doubt that this case would make it past the most preliminary review.

In the case of the closet, I think it’s poetic justice. A burglar that gets hurt breaking and entering has nobody to blame but himself. I have loads of integrity but if some asshat thief tried to sue me for harming themselves breaking into my property I’d probably shoot them myself. lol
The farmer that rigged the shotgun up in his outbuilding over a stupid radio disgusts me, and he too got what he deserved. Can you spell O-V-E-R-K-I-L-L?

Having seen some crazy situations where the burglar or attacker has received compensation, I would say it’s possible he has multiple legs to stand on.

If it was up to me, hell freakin’ no. The owner of the house should sue the burglar for staining his carpets full of blood because of being crushed half to death…

Does he have a leg to stand on? Clever question, considering that he was crushed half to death and his leg was amputated.

No, it seems like his action was the proximate cause. You did not invite or entice him (which is necessary fro entrapment).

Whether or not the suit would be successful in a civil judgment against you or not – and there is no telling what a jury may do! – the fact is that a suit could be brought against you and would cost you to defend.

As @SavoirFaire has already pointed out, this wouldn’t be “entrapment”, which is a part of criminal law and law enforcement. I think the thing you’d have to worry about would be “attractive nuisance”. The “attractive” part of that is the apparently easy access to the goods storage area, and the “nuisance” part would be the relative danger to the unwary.

@Nullo Do you mean “attractive nuisance?”

I would hope the burglar would not be successful. But the law allows burglars to sue.

“Ricky Bodine was a 19-year-old high-school graduate who, with three other friends (one of whom had a criminal record), decided the night of March 1, 1982, to steal a floodlight from the roof of the Enterprise High School gymnasium. Ricky climbed the roof, removed the floodlight, lowered it to the ground to his friends, and, as he was walking across the roof (perhaps to steal a second floodlight), he fell through the skylight. Bodine sued for $8 million (in 1984 dollars, about $16 million today) and settled for the nuisance sum of $260,000 plus $1200/month for life, about the equivalent of a million dollars in conservatively-estimated 2006 present value.”

Sadly, yes. I remember a case from about 20 years ago. A family was on vacation. A man broke into the house, through the garage roof. When he fell, he broke his leg, and could not get into the house or out of the garage. He was forced to eat dry dog food and drink warm Pepsi that he could reach, for ten days, until the family came home and found him.

He sued them for cruel and unusual punishment, and won $25,000.

@marinelife, @Eureka, I find those cases utterly beyond comprehension. Not that I doubt your finds one bit. I just cannot find any logic or sense, either rational or emotional, in those outcomes. How is it that there’s no prohibition against punishing the victim?

2nd Answer: one other point to remember.

You cannot shoot a person, simply because of a property crime they are committing, UNLESS, they are a definite threat to you and your family and coming towards you and not away from you. In other words, if a burglar is attempting to leave your burlarized premises, you can not shoot him in the butt or back. He is not longer a threat.

Not shooting a person attempting to steal your property, came from a case in Nashville and has effected the whole country. A lot of people are not aware of the law changes and get themselves involved in a civil lawsuit, because of it.

My understanding of entrapment is that you set out bait to lure a criminal in so I wouldn’t think that the stuffed closet or the farmer’s hut would be construed as entrapment. Plus you didn’t rig the closet just so that it would hurt someone when they opened it. You just stuck stuff in there. However, the farm rigged the hut so that it would kill someone if they went in. Two different scenarios.

A lot of these reports are urban legends (fine details not withstanding). In some cases, I think important details are omitted to make the suit seem more frivolous – like the property owner intentionally installing some medieval device to injure trespassers.

Snopes.com has this excellent article on the myths of frivolous lawsuits. In particular it debunks @Eureka‘s burglar in the garage. Also, it lists a number of actual cases that have been filed in court – where the plaintiff eventually lost.

Thank you @6rant6.

LOL!! BTW…I saw the one about the beagle before and cut a portion of it out for an English “What NOT to do” lesson, even if I don’t know the right words to ‘splain why it’s wrong (why is GailCalled never around when you need her? Like the cops, man!)…“The beagle was on a chain in its owner’s fenced in yard, as was Mr. Williams.” Well, if they had Mr. Williams on a chain in their fenced-in yard, I’d say they owed him $14,000 in pain and suffering, if nothing else!