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Court: FedEx not liable for the strange men who showed up at woman's door looking for the pot the company mistakenly shipped to her

A federal appeals court says a Plymouth woman who had an illegal shipment of marijuana mistakenly delivered to her door can't collect damages from FedEx because she was unable to prove the strange men who later showed up at her door demanding the package got her address from the shipping company.

And besides, the court continued, after dismissing her invasion of privacy claim, a federal law deregulating airlines takes precedence over her common-law claims of infliction of emotional distress.

In its ruling, the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston noted that a FedEx clerical error resulted in the two bags of pot being shipped from California to the woman's house, rather than to another house in Plymouth with the same street number but on another street. And yes, the court conceded, the woman became terrified when:

A man came to the plaintiff's door asking whether the plaintiff had received a package. The visitor's car was parked in the plaintiff's driveway with two men seated inside.

But, the court said, after receiving the package, the woman immediately contacted police, who soon after asked FedEx to not reveal any information about the package to anybody, including the sender.

Although the woman said they only way those men in the car could have shown up at her door was if somebody at FedEx told them where the package was delivered, the court said she failed to provide any proof anybody at FedEx actually did so - and that they could have just figured it out on their own. The court noted testimony by a FedEx worker that a woman had called FedEx to inquire where the package was and that when the employee could not tell her, she said she figured it was mis-delivered to a similar address in Plymouth.

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Comments

This is why your DarkNet vendors insist on real names and addresses. And what kind of an idiot ships weed FedEx? FedEx does not need a warrant to search the package the way the USPS does.

At least that's what a friend told me.

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It's true. I work for FedEx, and there is a paragraph, in the terms & conditions of shipments, so that we may, at our discretion, inspect any package without notice. There are also active police in the Memphis facility at all times, including K-9s. However, it's impossible to catch every illicit package, which is why people are still using our service for those things.

Also, if I had to speculate, I'd bet a paycheck that the 'victim's' address was never given out to anyone, by a FedEx employee. It's not so hard to ring doorbells in the neighborhood asking for a box that was delivered incorrectly. There are plenty of examples of us delivering a box to the right house number but wrong street, and it's equally possible that the shipper actually wrote the wrong street name on the airbill (or it wasn't very legible, etc.).

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By (expletive) legalizing marijuana.

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Now this silly woman should have to pay court costs for filing this frivolous lawsuit in the first place. What a waste of taxpayer money!

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How much of our tax money goes to the war on drugs?

"This isn't a war. Wars end," -The Wire

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Actually, this was not a "frivolous' lawsuit. The woman could not PROVE how the men knew the package was erroneously delivered to her address. Case in point, I received a package from a carrier, telephoned them about the error because I did not feel like delivering it to the correct address SINCE THE MISTAKE HAPPENED AT LEAST THREE TIMES...

The carrier said they would send someone to retrieve it and reroute it to the correct address. I have no knowledge if the carrier contacted the intended recipient and disclosed the error to them. BUt it's possible, not easy to prove.

In this woman's case the other person had knowledge that there are mail mix ups which could explain why the goons, I meant guys showed up to question her. Mail mix ups were probably common between their addresses, theirs more than hers.

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This woman didn't really "suffer". She didn't get beaten up. She didn't lose any money. She's just looking for a big payout for doing nothing.

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So, you receive a shipment of drugs at your address and contact authorities about it. Shortly thereafter, some shadowy characters show up at your door, with more in the driveway, inquiring after said shipment of drugs. You're going to say that your white underwear doesn't get a bit brown during this interaction?

So, after cleaning up, you start thinking about this. Who told them the package was delivered here? It must have been FedEx, right?

I don't think she had a case, but she definitely had emotional distress. Therefore, not frivolous. She's got her lawyers' bills at the end of the day, and the courts made the right call.

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Shadowy? like phantom men?

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in other words - me want big undeserved cash payment from large company with deep pockets."

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Just that it is not frivolous.

Say FedEx in fact did divulge her address to the drug dealers. You'd be okay with that, as long as they didn't rough her up when they visited her?

However, absent proof that they did divulge the address, this case is a loser. What you might think about her, well, perhaps I've given you some thought.

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I don't open other peoples' mail that gets to my house (I just moved, so this happens a lot). How did she know there was marijuana in there?

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The package was addressed to L. Tobin, but with Maryangela Tobin's address. So she opened the package. I suspect if something were addressed to B. Gaffin at my address, I'd probably open it without even thinking, too.

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