Sarah Koenig

Wait, what?

Why is she not liable?

It seems like if you go to a casino, that's like, you know what you're doing.

Like, what's your best one sentence argument for why it is that you believe she shouldn't be held responsible?

I heard about this case from New York Times reporter Charles Duhigg.

It's in his new book called The Power of Habit, which is about how habits form in our brains, and also about how companies tap into those habits to get us to spend money.

In Bachman's case, money she didn't have.

Duhigg also calls her Angie Bachman in his book, by the way.

Bachman's lawsuit made news, and some of the reaction was backlash.

Nasty online comments lamented the ever-increasing abrogation of personal responsibility.

One person wrote, what's next, suing supermarkets because you eat too much?

And another, not unless Lamborghini pays my speeding tickets.

And another, can I sue Budweiser for getting me drunk?

I have to say, the case initially struck me as flimsy, too.

And when Nofsinger first heard about gambling addiction, he didn't buy it either.

Years earlier, he'd gotten a call from a guy named David Williams.

Williams had lost everything, including his house, playing slots on a local riverboat casino.

He told Nofsinger he'd run red lights driving to the riverboat so he could be there the second the casino opened, that he'd sat at the same slot machine for 20 hours straight.

The lawsuit didn't work.

It was rejected in federal court.