A part of what is wrong with America

[BloodEclipse]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]MSNBC.com[/FONT]

Family Wins Verdict Against Maker Of Louisville Slugger

WLEX-TV
updated 9:45 p.m. ET, Thurs., Oct . 29, 2009

HELENA, Mont. (AP) - A Montana jury has found the maker of Louisville Slugger baseball bats failed to adequately warn about the dangers the product can pose, awarding a family $850,000 for
the 2003 death of their son in a baseball game.

The jury on Wednesday awarded a total of $850,000 in damages against Hillerich & Bradsby for failure to place warnings on the product. However, the jury decided the product was not defective.

Brandon Patch's family argued that aluminum baseball bats are dangerous because they cause the ball to travel at a greater speed.

They argued their 18-year-old son did not have enough time to react to the ball being struck before it hit him in the head while he was pitching in an American Legion baseball game in Helena in
2003.

Debbie Patch says she hopes the decision will make more people aware of the dangers associated with aluminum bats and that more youth leagues will switch to using wooden bats.

The attorneys for Hillerich & Bradsby declined to comment.


What can I say other than these parents should be ashamed of themselves.
Who really believes, that if the bats had a warning on them, that their son would not have been on that field?
Notice they didn't sue the league who has no money. They sued the bat maker and in this age of "sue everybody", they found a jury who was stupid enough to award them some sympathy money.
This kind of garbage needs to stop.

 

[El Cazador]

What would you bet that family moved to Montana from a state farther west and a bit south?

 

[Bigum1969]

We are too litigious of a society. Period.

No personal responsibility. Instead, lawyer up and get a payday.

 

[BloodEclipse]

What would you bet that family moved to Montana from a state farther west and a bit south?

I would say there was a good chance of that.

 

[newbie]

People like this **** me off. Maybe the baseball company should be sued too since the ball was too hard.

 

[Bigum1969]

And maybe Louisville Slugger ought to sue the parents for being idiots.

 

[jmiller676]

Whenever I took a ball off the chest on a grounder, or hit by a line shot my dad always told me to use my glove next time. Whenever I got hit by a pitch he told me good job at getting on base. It's part of the game...these parents are lame.

 

[Blue Tile Spook]

"You didn't warn me that I was participating in a dangerous activity.

You didn't warn me that my son might still be hurt/killed while wearing the basic safety equipment required by my organized baseball league, even if we possibly signed a liability waiver for him and possibly signed paperwork for league medical insurance in case he was, you know, hurt or killed while playing baseball.

Even though our lawsuit against you doesn't take into account the dangers of playing baseball itself, the ability of the pitcher, the ability and strength of the batter or a player having sheer bad luck, unfortunately, you drew the short straw to be the recipient of our lawsuit (also known as being the entity with the deepest financial pockets).

Sorry.

Oh, you can make out the check using my nickname - "CASH""

 

[BloodEclipse]

Found this.

http://www.baseballcoaches.org/issuewoodvsnonwood.pdf

The popular perspective is that non-wood bats are more dangerous than wood bats. However, there is no scientific data to back this up.

​

The National Consumer Product Safety Commission completed a study on this issue and
concluded in 2002 that there is no evidence to suggest that non-wood bats pose any
greater risk than wood bats. Multiple amateur baseball governing bodies, including the
NCAA, National High School Federation, Little League International, PONY, et al, all track safety statistics and have concluded that non-wood bats do not pose a safety risk.​

The argument about safety being the number one reason metal bats are banned, is still
being used. Even when there is information that shows the number of catastrophic
injuries is not significant. Dr. Frederick Mueller, Director of the National Center for
Catastrophic Sports Injury Research has indicated from his studies that catastrophic
injuries from wood bats may be more frequent than aluminum bats. Two out of the three deaths from a batted ball in the last decade came from wood bats.​

I figured this was the case so I went looking.

 

[evansvillethompsongunner]

But to dismiss this as one isolated case (or simply one in a larger series) of idiocy is to overlook the larger and more pervasive problem, as I see it...and as a student of law (but by no means a lawyer or inclination to be one), the problem isn't with lawyering in general, despite several asinine bits of caselaw in recent years, but rather, the more deeply-entrenched problem is with the unnecessary and asinine laws government insists on putting out - because we all know that if you simply continue to regulate and fine people for formerly-legal activities, then crime of course goes down...which is why crime doesn't happen any more, isn't it? Hell, it's the same with anything which the government is wary of - model rockets aren't sold in Wal-Mart any more and in fact, one must now be licensed and a member of a listed rocketeers club to launch them. Model rockets. On some fabled rationale that a terrorist might use them to commit some unknown heinous act.... because common sense dictates that if a terrorist were to try to do something nefarious, they'd of course eschew an RPG in favor of an Estes model rocket with an engine of less than a quarter-ounce of charge, right? The same goes for making fireworks, having a common chemistry set, exploding stumps on your land, etc. So afraid of its people are our governments that anything which even has the potential to subvert the power of the almighty State in any way is demonized, branded as dangerous, and then regulated (read: banned)... all for our own protection: because if you're making your own aspirin from acetic acid and milk, then one is of course producing amphetamines as well. In addition to suffering from the most pervasive, long-lasting cases of mission creep in the known world, the governments - State and National both - our laws reflect not only the government's collective intentions, but also its collective mindset...and our government suffers from unhealthy and unparalleled levels of paranoia.

 

[Dryden]

About two years ago, I purchased an Eswing 16oz. hammer. It had a folded up card attached to it. When I got home, I unfolded the card and it spred out to 10 pages of warnings about the potential hazards of using the hammer. According to the warnings, I should not use it for : striking hard surfaces such as metal nails, wood, plaster, brick, rock, concrete, plastic, glass, ceramic, ..... !!!! By the end of the warning, I wondered exactly what the hammer was designed to be used for.

The company lawyers made it it very clear that the Eswing hammer was only to be used as a tool to crush your clumsy fingers.

If you read the warnings on almost any product, you'll discover that it should NOT be used under any circumstances.

 

[BloodEclipse]

About two years ago, I purchased an Eswing 16oz. hammer. It had a folded up card attached to it. When I got home, I unfolded the card and it spred out to 10 pages of warnings about the potential hazards of using the hammer. According to the warnings, I should not use it for : striking hard surfaces such as metal nails, wood, plaster, brick, rock, concrete, plastic, glass, ceramic, ..... !!!! By the end of the warning, I wondered exactly what the hammer was designed to be used for.

The company lawyers made it it very clear that the Eswing hammer was only to be used as a tool to crush your clumsy fingers.

If you read the warnings on almost any product, you'll discover that it should NOT be used under any circumstances.

But all those lawyers they hire and all the warnings they print make the product safer and less expensive right?

 

[stilllearning09]

This is a sad commentary on today's greedy society.

 

[Indecision]

Lack or personal responsibility for one's actions, in my opinion, is the single largest contributor to the downfall of American society.

 

[XMil]

Hell, it's the same with anything which the government is wary of - model rockets aren't sold in Wal-Mart any more and in fact, one must now be licensed and a member of a listed rocketeers club to launch them. Model rockets. On some fabled rationale that a terrorist might use them to commit some unknown heinous act.... because common sense dictates that if a terrorist were to try to do something nefarious, they'd of course eschew an RPG in favor of an Estes model rocket with an engine of less than a quarter-ounce of charge, right?

This is not true. In fact the FAA this year opened up the regulations regarding model rockets, increasing the size and amount of propellant allowed under model rocket regulations. You can now launch a rocket with up to 80 newton-seconds weighing up to 3.3lbs without notifying the FAA or belonging to any club.

Until this year "model" rockets were those that weighed under 1lb.

Also, a lawsuit was won, barring the ATF from regulating the most popular large rocket propellant (Ammonium perchlorate). You can now store as many rocket motors of this type as you like with no regulation.

For reference:

The upper left is an estes "D" motor with 12 newton-seconds of thrust. The
bottom motor is a "j" motor with 2,500 newton-seconds. You can buy "O" motors with over 40,000 newton-seconds of thrust!

/hijack

 

[haldir]

Why do we all lose our minds when we sit on a jury?

I remember several years ago, a series on ladders, the suits against them, the resulting warning labels. It would be funny if it wasn't destroying this country.

 

[femurphy77]

Lets see. . . .played little league for four years, got beaned, smacked or whacked so many times I'm losing my train of thought! Gee that oughta be worth a couple mill at least. If any of you see my name attached to one of these stupid ### lawsuits please use my melon to sight in your new rifle!!!!!

 

[Paco Bedejo]

I can think of several other great uses for that aluminum slugger...

 

[BloodEclipse]

I can think of several other great uses for that aluminum slugger...

A Sit and Spin for people who are sue happy?

 

[2ADMNLOVER]

This is the same kinda thing with free standing ranges and refrigerators .

Every time new ones are installed they are supposed to have anti-tip devices installed with them .

Crap like this is why I HATE the legal system .