*Katko v Briney*, Iowa: a burglar, Marvin Katko, broke into Edward Briney's boarded-up farmhouse and was badly wounded by a shotgun Briney had rigged to fire on intruders. Katko sued — and won $30,000. The Iowa Supreme Court's rule: "Do not set booby traps on your property. It is not okay no matter what." Marshall reads the decision as higher-order thinking from the bench. First-order, it offends: a criminal is paid for getting hurt mid-crime. But trace the second and third orders of a society that permits property booby-traps. Who else enters a building without permission? Firefighters fighting a blaze. Police on a manhunt who find a door already forced. Neighbors sheltering from a "storm of the century." Children exploring. An automatic trap cannot read intent — "once a trap is set, you can't control how it goes off." The court noted that had Briney been *present* and shot Katko himself, that might have been defensible — a person can judge a situation an automatic mechanism cannot. The durable principle generalizes past law: any irreversible, autonomous mechanism you deploy will eventually fire on a case you never imagined. Prefer the reversible, human-in-the-loop option. --- *Source: [[Book Inventory/Progression|Progression]] (Sebastian Marshall, 2016) — Uncommon Virtues #3 — Higher-Order Thinking*