X-Message-Number: 31800
From: 
Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2009 23:47:52 EDT
Subject: Backup organization

Hello all:
 
I have been thinking about threats to cryonics and how to combat them. One  
of the biggest threats would be a lawsuit in which a runaway jury 

sympathized  with a whacko complainant and awarded a sum so huge as to overwhelm

insurance and bankrupt CI or Alcor. (Remember the jury that awarded a huge sum
to the woman who was burned when she spilled McDonald's coffee in her lap. 
She  was 80 I think, and she was shocked, simply shocked, to discover that 
coffee was  hot. Juries can be crazy.)  So in spite of insurance a cryonics 
operation  can be bankrupted. If so, then if there were a backup organization 
to  rescue and restart the operation, it might save the day. Such an  

organization could be funded by contributions and do nothing but buy insurance
against this contingency, to pay off only if a cryonics operation were sued 
and  bankrupted.
 
In that event the plaintiffs might claim everything, though there is a  
special fund in which the patient's money is kept (for maintenance of the  
"cemetery" I think) which would be untouchable. They also would not want the  
patients (which would mean they'd have to care for them, and subject  
*themselves* to lawsuits from all the families.) Nor should they want the  

cryostats, because how could they sell them, and what would they do with  the 
remains 
stored inside? They might want the building, though they'd have  the 
problem of getting the cryostats out.
 
All in all it would probably be possible to keep the building (perhaps with 
 some payment) and cryostats and bodies, and start a new organization. The  
claimants would get most of the bank accounts, of course. But a million  
dollars would probably be enough to restart, and a million of insurance  

shouldn't be too expensive, because this contingency is unlikely. The  premiums
might be on the order of a couple of thousand dollars a year. The  rescue 
organization could probably be a tax-deductible charity.
 
Note that neither CI nor Alcor could do this themselves. They could have  
100 million in insurance and if the plaintiffs were awarded a billion 
dollars,  any and all insurance would go to them. But a completely separate  
organization could not be sued, so one million in insurance should be  enough.
 
What do you think? What do our lawyers and insurance experts think?
 
Alan Mole

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