No one ever said life in a libertarian republic would be easy. Even in a perfectly voluntary society, sometimes there are going to be some negative externalities that we’re going to have to deal with, and we can’t sue our neighbor for damages if their corpse just happens to explode and leak congealed bodily fluids everywhere.
That’s precisely what one Florida woman is having to deal with.
Palm Beach County, Florida resident Judy Rodrigo found herself with quite a cleanup bill after her upstairs neighbor died and her bloated corpse exploded congealed bodily fluids all over the place. Despite the fact that the old woman’s dogs had eaten much of her body, she still had enough organs and flesh to detonate all over the upstairs apartment.
The juices from the old woman who combusted left Rodrigo with a problem that she attempted to rectify by suing her insurance company, State Farm, for reimbursement of the repairs to clean up the corpse’s goop. Unfortunately for her, a judge found that the insurance company is not required to pay for the damages caused by an exploding cadaver.
“The plain meaning of the term ‘explosion’ does not include a decomposing body’s cells explosively expanding, causing leakage of bodily fluids,” they court stated, per the New York Post.
The court went on to say that Rodrigo failed to establish that the woman’s corpse was “tantamount to an explosion.”
Could this also be considered an “act of God?” If so, after complaints about being unable to get rid of the unearthly smell, I’m sure this episode has Rodrigo questioning where her God is now.
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