Well, the point I was making is you go after the money, not the person. If I was to think like a lawyer then the answer is to sue everybody in sight and then sue a few extra people that you heard might have been in sight. The Judge can figure out at his own leisurely legal pace who pays who and how much.

I was not thinking of punishment as much as I was thinking about cost recovery, but punishment might be needed to reduce some of the abuse.
I think Hikermor's comments on that and on current policy are quite to the point.

As for the cleaning of the gene pool, well it seems there is more drift there than actual flushing. It only takes a slightly higher or lower reproductive rate for a genetic trait to dominate the population.
Besides that you can think of the fools in the same way as the bible says about the poor. They will always be with you.

Sure, why not?
You can sue McDonald's if you spill coffee on your own lap.

You can sue Big Tobacco for the cancer they "gave" you, of course by forcing smoke down your lungs multiple times daily for years.

You can sue a homeowner when you're capability for walking is exceeded by a sidewalk.

I think here in the US, there's so much frivilous BS that unfortunately, the precedent has left "responsiblilty" and gone into stupidity.

I might be getting close to crossing over some forum rules, but I think you get my point.

So, then who would you go after in the case of a Personal Locator Beacon (PLB) alerted “rescue” of an idiot? Would it be ACR, McMurdo, Pains Wessex, or whatever other manufacturer produced the PLB unit that sent the alert? Why, exactly, would that manufacturer be responsible since their device only sent an alert to a system (Cospas-Sarsat) created by the governments of Canada, France, United States, and the former Soviet Union for the express purpose of distress alert and location?

It seems completely counter-intuitive for governing bodies to create an entire satellite communication network for the express purposes of distress alert and location, then to place the cost of the actual rescue services on any manufacturer that markets a device that interfaces with that system. There wouldn’t be a manufacturer in their right mind that would pursue such a market.

In the case of the SPOT Satellite GPS Messenger, the question only gets more confusing since the device now communicates over a corporate satellite network (Globalstar) to a corporate risk mitigation service (GEOS Alliance) instead of directly to a government communication network. Which deep-pocket corporation gets to pay the government for their “rescue” (read, “babysitting,”) efforts here?

Shall Motorola, Nokia, et al. start emptying their pockets when people make pointless distress calls using their cell phones? How about the companies that laid the fiber lines the cell towers use to communicate to the telephone network?

See where this goes?

Maybe the folks who are profiting by selling the idea that the use of their equipment and the publicly funded 911/EMS/SAR systems will save their customer's asses should at least help pick up the tab?

If it weren't for publicly funded emergency systems, SPOT would not be in business. Doesn't matter who they pay for the use of their satellites.

Money does not equal liability. Just because someone is making a buck or two by mitigating some of the risk we as individuals take with our lives daily doesn't mean they should be punished for it. It doesn't matter if the perpetrator is broke or not; that's not the point. The point is deterring naive people from making stupid decisions without any forethought or planning, causing the rest of us to bail them out of a situation they got themselves into, and have only themselves to blame for it. I am not inclined to go punish a company that provides me with a hedge against some of the mistakes I might make simply because some idiot decided to use their device inappropriately. I would much rather bring down the wrath of God on the fool that pushed the button because he ran out of water on a dayhike and didn't feel like walking the 5 miles back to his car.

Again, it sounds like some of us would rather kink the system that was put in place to help us all out than to punish those who choose to abuse that system for their own selfish gain at the expense of the rest of us. That just don't make no sense. If SPOT can find a way to make a buck or two by helping us all be a little safer out in the wilderness, then kudos to them, and I wish them the best of luck and hope they will continue to provide their services at a decent price. There would be no hope of doing that if we somehow made them pay the price for the abuse a few dummies perpetuate.

Now, if someone out there is providing rescue insurance, then I would certainly expect them to foot the bill for the cost of rescuing their customers, even the stupid ones. If an insurance company is going to insure people for doing stupid things, then they deserve what they get, unless they manage to get judgement proof exclusions in their policies. In that case, caveat emptor, and you'd best only push that button if you are in a real crisis situation. If I read it correctly, GEOS is a company that is providing that sort of coverage (up to $100,000 per rescue), for something like $8 a year. That seems pretty fair, and certainly quite doable.

Knowing that, anyone stupid enough to trek off into the woods without first acquiring both a means of being located and some insurance to cover the costs of resuce gets what they deserve, up to and including a grieving widow(er).

highlighted by me

They offer the additional rescue insurance from GEOS at $7.95(?) a year for up to $100,000.00 for a maximum of two rescues in a year.

In case anybody is still missing the point a person who has purchased the SPOT service has already made the agreement to pay SPOT for the privilege of pushing that button whenever they choose for any reason they like.
SPOT has accepted (demanded) payment for that privilege and that effectively transfers the responsibility to the SPOT service for such abuses. The disclaimer in the first sentence might not protect them in spite of their desire that it does.

I suspect a lawyer arguing against any personal fines would bring up this issue and the concept of double jeopardy might apply as well.
The insurance they presently charge for also carries heavy penalties for abuse.

If there is a problem over what amount SPOT has demanded payment for then maybe they should charge the $7.95 a year for the insurance rider and include it as part of the service automatically.
$7.95 is not likely to be a deal breaker for anybody buying their beacon so the argument about it driving them out of business is very questionable.

The fact is that SPOT is already charging the money.

You should also note the standard disclaimers on their GEOS insurance policy and their payment terms.
http://www.geosalliance.com/sar/

That would be akin to forcing US Cellular to foot the bill everytime someone calls 911 for some bogus problem. You are essentially paying US Cellular for the privilege of dialing 911 through their system to get emergency service response (although as I understand it, most cell service providers are under some agreement with ES to provide the 911 coverage free of charge, provided you have a phone that will work on their network). I don't anyone here sees any difference between the service SPOT provides and that of any other communications carrier service, even presuming that SPOT's ES provisions are exclusive, which they are not. SPOT is not getting paid to mitigate any liability of use, they are getting paid to provide a communications resource. GEOS offers the liability coverage, at an additional fee, which is akin to Ford making the car and Allstate providing the insurance for the operation of the car. I think that would be an affirmative defense. They are charging money, but not to relieve the end user of their strict liability of responsible use. No different than trying to sue Gun manufacturers for making guns that kill because some knothead used a gun to commit a crime.

As we've already established, abuse/misuse of the SAR services is punishable, regardless of the method used. Allowing an easier method to do it does not imply a liability of use, no more so than would making a gun that is able to shoot more than one bullet between reloads an assumption by the manufacturer of liability for how a gun is used.

It seems there is only one person missing the point in this debate. Is it me?

Those policy disclaimers that GEOS published seem to be a standard type: Exercise due diligence, and you can't fix stupid.

It's surprising to me, how many people still get in trouble in the Grand Canyon, given the amount of warning signs at the visitor centers and trailheads:

http://www.u.arizona.edu/~sandiway/hikes/grandcanyon/warning.jpg


http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2159/2060598458_623bb6f3e2.jpg


http://www.granneman.com/images/20030806_grand_canyon_hiker.jpg

Actually, after a career in the NPS, I am not at all surprised that there are folks who do not heed warning signs. Remember however that we are discussing a few memorable incidents , a very small percentage of the thousands of back country trips taken in the park each year.

US cellular is not charging for any false alarm calls to 911. Spot is charging for them. That changes everything and because it indicates they are aware of the problem and the fact they have attempted to prevent being effected by it by levying their own fines makes them responsible for it under due diligence requirements.
Not only that, by deciding to determine for themselves after the call has been made whether the call was abuse or negligence, and charging a fee if it was they have assumed responsibility for the validity of the call.
This also brings in the idea that they knowingly are creating a public nuisance.
The legalese in their contract to avoid liability only serves to show the problem was forseeable and that they themselves considered it forseeable.

Ben, this is not about morality or reasonableness. It is about American justice and who gets to pay to play.

Here is an excerpt from a Judges comments regarding the attempt to sue ICI for supplying the fertilizer used by the Oklahoma City bomber.
The lawsuit failed but not for the reasons you might expect.