The Lawyer Talk Q and a series.

Here again, Steve Palmer Lawyer Talk Q A and A.

What is Q amp? A.

Well, that's question and answer.

How do you get your question answered?

You gotta go to Lawyer Talk Podcast.com. Submit your question and I will answer it.

You could also listen on Wednesdays over the Blitz.

I answer those questions, too, but this is

a very unique personal experience where I'm breaking down questions and bitesized

junks, trying to make the complicated simple.

And as I say, almost everything can be made simple.

And today we are going to simplify a question from

Morningstar went to Lawyertalkpodcast.com, she submitted a question.

Or maybe it's not a she. I don't know.

Morningstar.

Anyway, Morningstar is a question in the movies.

It seems you can get away with anything if you have a contract allowing you to do it.

If we both agree to sign a contract that allowed me to shoot you in the foot and I

gave you 1 million in return, would that be legal?

Now let's say you feel that you are a woman trapped in a man's body, and as a

legal general surgeon, you pay me to remove functional parts of your body

because you feel you no longer need them, and we make a contract to do just that.

Is that legal?

What if we made a contract for your life

for a billion dollars given to your family?

Would that be legal?

Then let's twist it slightly and say you're dying from cancer and you begged me

to euthanize you and we put it into contract.

Would that be legal? Well, there's a lot of examples here, and

I'm going to try to break this down as quickly and efficiently as I can.

Generally speaking, it's not just the

movies where we have contracts to do harm to each other.

Just think of a football game.

Think of a boxing match, UFC.

We fight each other by contract all the time.

And really what we're talking about is consent.

We are consenting in those scenarios to assault each other or to an assault.

So generally speaking, though, you're not

consenting necessarily to serious bodily harm, you're consenting only to harm

that's reasonably foreseeable and the risk is reasonably accepted.

In other words, you're consenting to a reasonable risk and the individual

consenting generally is receiving a benefit for the consent.

So say take a football game.

Obviously it's a risk and everybody

assumes the risk that you could break your neck and that serious physical harm.

It doesn't mean that exceeded the scope of your consent to play

the game or against the other team or the person that hits you.

Now take, for example, though, a situation where somebody took a dirty shot on you.

This is the classic Jim McMahon, where he's thrown down, separated

shoulder, had some serious injuries as a result of it.

You've seen other scenarios where recently a player took his helmet off and started

swinging and you could cause some harm that way.

You don't consent to that.

That exceeds the scope of consent, and therefore, you don't get to claim there

was a, quote, contract or some defense to doing it that would go too far in a boxing

match, for instance, if you were sent a ship and blows out after

the Bell or sucker punches or maybe somebody's down and you jumped on them and

went too far after the rep was trying to stop it, that would exceed the scope of

consent and you wouldn't be able to and you wouldn't get away with that.

Now what's going on? If we both agreed to sign a contract, let

me shoot you in the foot and I gave you $1 million in return, would that be legal?

I don't think you can consent to that kind of serious physical harm.

Generally, what you're going to run into

these are sort of these ethicallegal policy questions.

And if you look at an assault charge where I guess this is one that would probably be

against a public policy, so courts would not enforce that, I do not believe.

But then you ask the next good question.

What if I pay a surgeon to do it?

What if I pay a surgeon to cut off my foot

because they have some mental illness that says I don't want my foot?

Well, that gets a little bit dicey.

But then you run into these other things

where you can run into the regulatory scheme by the American Medical Association

or whatever governs their body of law or body of practice.

And my guess is that's where the courts would default on this is that

this exceeded reasonable and necessary medical care.

So you wouldn't find a defense there of

consent or contract allowing you to cut off somebody's foot unless it were

medically necessary for some reason or another.

And then

the question you asked specifically is about this gender surgery.

So here's the other side of that where

agree with it or not, the medical profession has issued regulatory

suggestions or governing regulations that say that this is acceptable medical care.

Not only that, it's preferred I saw it

came out of the White House just the other day that kids should have access to gender

transition surgeries and or medications because that's what the government says.

I don't agree with any of this, by the way.

I think this is insanity.

But this is where you get into that area where

a surgeon is going to have a little bit of protection there for doing it.

You could think, just think, abortion, there's going to be about half or however

many people will think you're killing babies by performing an abortion.

Those who perform abortion said, no, it's a fetus.

We just define it as a fetus.

And if you flip the law and you look at if I assault a pregnant woman and I kill

the, quote, fetus, well, then that could be murder.

So you find these inconsistencies in the weeds when you dig into it.

And I don't profess to have all the answers here.

I'm just pointing out all the problems in that easy.

Anyway, if we made a contract for my life

for a billion dollars given to your family, would that be illegal?

Well, it happens every day, right?

We have life insurance.

And in fact, people probably do have

billion dollar life insurance policies and they pay out upon death.

Now, I don't think that's what you mean, but I can't agree or consent to murder.

Again, that's that public policy consideration.

The law is not going to allow it.

You can't consent to murder.

In fact, in most places, suicide is also a crime.

Now, you're not getting prosecuted if you

kill yourself successfully, but in theory, I guess you could be if you fail.

And that brings us to the final portion of

this, your last twist, which I like, say you're dying from cancer and you begged me

to euthanize you and we put it into contract.

Would that be legal? Well, this is happening.

There's been a couple of cases around where this is going on.

In fact, here in Columbus, Ohio, Doctor

Hussel is accused of killing people who are not maybe we're terminal, maybe not.

Or you hear this all the time.

This is the Kavorkian defense.

Can you put somebody out of their misery by juicing up the meds?

And there's this dual I've heard of this dual purpose doctrine where there may be a

medical purpose for the extra pain meds just to keep you out of pain.

But everybody also knows that as soon as you cross a certain threshold, it's going

to do the job quickly and safely and maybe even, I don't know, humanely.

Would it be legal? No.

Generally it depends on the state law.

But generally in Ohio, no doctors can't euthanize their patients.

And I heard an argument the other day.

I remember the Cavalcan

arguments back in the 90s or 80s, whenever that was, and I generally would decide on

I guess we should be able to have euthanasia.

But then I heard an argument the other day

that was actually pretty persuasive, where it's very difficult to draw the line.

It's very difficult to determine when that's appropriate.

And once you start down that slippery

slope, it just goes and goes and goes and goes and goes.

So I guess I got to give it some more

thought and sort it out in my own head where I land on it.

But generally, I think it's one of those things that happens.

I think that

you hear people in Hospice care, and I immediately think, well, they're probably

getting lots and lots and lots of pain meds and they'll just put the person to

sleep and maybe everybody's okay with that.

Nobody's asking any questions.

So it's sort of like a don't ask, don't tell.

I think in reality, I can't prove that but that's my hunch.

But what about you get the kaborkian and

it's not just a don't ask, don't tell it's.

I'm telling everybody that I am doing this.

I am putting humans out of their misery. They're going to die anyway.

They've consented to it.

There's a contract and I'm going to do it right now.

Most States would say you cannot do that.

I'm not aware of anything in the American medical association recommending standards

of practice on this right now, but my guess is it's a negative.

And then I think this is also something that's going to unfold.

I think this is going to have a lot of interest

for the religious folks who would say no, that's God's job, not mine.

And then you're going to have the more

practical, quote, progressive folks who say no, we're humans.

We should take advantage of this and be able to do it ourselves.

I'll let you figure out Morningstar where you fit on the moral spectrum there.

I know where I fit and it really doesn't make any difference, I suppose.

But anyway, I hope I've answered your questions.

Let's sort of sum it up.

You can't consent to murder

people consent to assaults all the time in the context of sports.

When it goes too far and somebody exceeds

the scope of your consent, the contract dies and you could be prosecuted.

And generally you're not going to be able

to consent to serious bodily harm, just like shooting somebody's foot off.

But anyway, I hope that's answered your question or questions.

If you have more, please follow up@lawyertalkpodcast.com. For those who

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So with that, I will wrap it up.

This lawyer talk Q-A-Q and a off the record on the air at least until now.