Riding ANY bike with ANY equipment can lead to liability issues. I have seen MANY riders with rim brakes who didn't have a clue about doing up QRs and wondered why their bikes handles like rubbish. In one case, the non-disc-brake suspension fork on a hire bike of mine was damaged severely in an incident just like this. It was entirely operator error for not reassembling the bike as instructed after they travelled by motor vehicle to their ride venue.

The incident you point to is relatively old. The issue of fork design and particularly the placement of the mounting tabs for the calipers on the forks came to light in the early 2000s. I haven't seen many posts in the MTB forum here talking about lost front wheels since then. The two related design factors, as I remember the discussions at the time, were the angle of the dropout, particularly if they were vertical, and the tab position and the leverage or turning effect that created on the axle.