Friday Frivolity: The Parking Garage Hypo with a Deadly Twist via Fargo

Every year, I challenge my students with a hypothetical based on terms and conditions on the back of a parking ticket like the one below.

Perhaps the ticket goes further than the one pictured above. Perhaps it also limits the liability of the garage and its employees for any damage to your vehicle. So, for example, it your car is hit by the car of another driver, the garage is not liable. If your car is hit by a negligent employee of the garage who is parking the car of someone who paid for valet parking, the garage is not liable.

The movie Fargo, one of my absolute favorites, has its own tweaked version of the hypo. Let’s say Carl (Steve Buscemi) is supposed to meet up with Jerry (William H. Macy) to pick up a ransom payment. But Jerry’s father in law (Harve Presnell) decides to make the drop off himself (“It’s my money!”). Carl, who has recently had to pay for $4 for parking when he changed his mind about using the parking lot, has a similarly disappointing experience this time around. The father in law insists on the return of his kidnapped daughter before handing over the money. He ends up dead; Carl also receives a flesh wound to the face in the exchange. It takes only a few minutes, and then Carl, bleeding profusely, drives out of the parking garage.

Now in my hypothetical, Carl is unhappy with the terms that he reads on the back of the ticket. Arbitration!” he cries. “In Boston!!” His rage level was already at homicidal but terms and conditions take him to a new level.

Does he have to pay for parking, or should the attendant allow him to leave without paying based on his strong objection to the terms?

Here’s a movie clip in case you would like to see the Coen brothers’ solution. Warning: there is foul language. A lot of foul language. Also, some blood.