Legal Ramblings
[ Saturday, September 20, 2003 (5:31 PM) ] ( link )
Time dilation and SoLs, redux: My previous post on the intersection between time dilation and the running of statutes of limitations has, surprisingly, generated a few responses.
First, James writes in with the following answer: "The court's clock, I would say. If it's anything else, the potential proof problems involved could be intractable."
Next, Kate Nepveu (who, among other things, also used to be a Drew Days small groupie) agrees with James: "Relativity is all about frames of reference. So, the question really is what frame of reference is appropriate, and when you put it that way, the answer is obvious: it's the court's."
Finally, the lawyers get shoved aside as a real physicist gets involved--Chad Orzel posts: From the standpoint of a physicist, of course, the only appropriate time to use is the time measured by [the space-travelling] Party B's clock. It's the one unique time in the problem, and the shortest time anybody will measure between the two events in question (namely, the wronging of Party A and the filing of charges). The time measured by Party B (in this problem) is even called the "proper time"-- how much clearer an answer could you want?
See also all of the comments on Chad's page. One of the most interesting comments comes from John Novak, who writes, "And here I would have suggested the frame of reference where the damages occurred, which may or may not be the same as the court." Traditional choice-of-law doctrine held that the law to be applied in a torts suit was the law of the place of injury; it therefore does seem to make some sense to impose the same lex loci rule for choice-of-time problems, though there are some rather troubling proof problems with defining the frame of reference in which the injury occurred.
One commenter also says that a short story coming out in Asimov's plays with a similar idea. Well, good luck to the author; the statute of limitations is hardly the most scintillating topic for a science-fiction story, even if you put in big spaceships and near light-speed travel.
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