Yes, I think it's fair. Insurance companies will pay out if the medical staff can prove that a brain injury patient is improving. That is a fact. If they stop improving then they quit covering and they should. After that it is up to the parents to care for the child. No one is at fault here. No one. This law suit should have never seen a minute on a judges desk. To what TFox was saying. Little League never adjusted their rules to growing athletisisim of the kids playing. Meaning they kept the same rules from the 70's to recent without adjusting them to the now 6'0, 185lbs. third basemans playing the game now. I'm certain that all leagues will go to the BBCOR bats in the very near future.
Mahoney, you are thinking with your heart and not your mind. Health insurance companies are not in business to make sure everyone of their policy holders stays healthy the rest of their life. They are in business to make money. That's why they put caps on coverage, to insure they make money. The companies have invested a lot of money into calculating where caps need to be to keep them in the black no matter what. I understand how a family feels when insurance benefits run out, but I also know that if benefits never ran out, insurance companies would not exist. It is better to have peace of mind that a crapload of medical bills will be paid before I have to pay anything than to be looking at literally hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills laying before me.
So you use employers insurance, what if you get fired? Change jobs? Does your wife work? Because one of you will have to quit to care for the child. It's real easy to talk about what we would do in this type of situation. The kid did nothing wrong also, let's not forget that either.
You're comparing apples to oranges here. In this case there is a very liable party....the drunk. You're friends insurance company was kind enough to cover even though someone else was at fault. They should consider themselves lucky on that part. I don't think it is a case of them dropping the child because the bills are too high, but they know the other party should be liable.
Don't mean to disagree... but the drunk guy on the dirt bike was clearly negligent and operating his bike in a way that is contrary to the manufacturers warning. There may have also been some liability on the property owner if they knew, allowed or condoned the operation of a motorcycle by someone with impaired judgment. That's apples and oranges in comparison to a ball striking a player in a ballgame. Now if the parents of the dirt-biking child knew the man was drunk... can't likely prove that... they also own some of the fault if they let him ride anyway.
I could get fired today, Germ and my kids would be without insurance. I'm not getting why you think someones misfortunes should be placed at the hands of someone else? No one said the kid did any thing wrong. Neither did the league, the manufacturer of the bat or the sporting goods store. Thats what blows my mind. How is the sporting goods store even remotely responsible? The bat was not illegal. It was approved by the league.
Iowa I am just speaking for arguments sake of devils advocate... I like a good discussion every now and then. Every situation is different, but the law has to be the same. And this attorney did prove a case to make somene pay. As for thinking with a heart or mind, one can argue both sides. Lunger said we have become greedy americans and the american way is to sue (which I agree with his statement) but one can also argue with his mind that americans are greedy and the insurance company should not pay because they invested millions of dollars investingating what insurance caps should be so that they can knickle and dime the hard working american public. Just as Lunger said above... The little league commision has not changed rules since the 70s, it does not take a rocket scientist to see kids are getting bigger and stronger then ever. One could easily prove the League was negligent by not adapting the rules... Perhaps this issue never happened before and caused no reason for the league to investigate the poetential of this incident and did not change the rules... Again you can prove negligent... A good attorney will prove either side
Maybe the coach should also be sued for not instructing the pitcher proper fielding techniques. Or how about the catcher, everyone knows the batter is a fast pitch hitter, he should have called for a curve. Lets not leave out the field maintenance, if they would have not made the mound so high, the pitcher would not have been able to throw with such velocity that the ball could not have sprung off the bat at such a high rate of speed. Does it ever end?
A very tragic and unfortunate situation. But a 14 million dollar settlement is absurd. Sometimes bad things happen & its nobodies fault.
I'm suprised thefamily of the kid that hit the ball hasn't sued for the trauma he incurred. These lawsuits are insane.
LL in this case sets the standards for the kids to conform to. They are in charge of regulating the bats and they were negligent by allowing bats that are unsafe for play at that age and distance. IMO, money played a big role because bat companies were driving the market with hotter bats each year. Im glad that things are changing for the better but it saddens me to know it takes kids getting hurt and KILLED to make them start changing the rules. Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk 2
I get what your saying Todd. I really do. Bat's were getting hotter and hotter when I played in the league 20 years ago. That was the start of the Louisville Slugger vs. Easton days. We've know that balls come off the bat faster the day metal bats were used. Where were people like you back then not making a stink out of it? I'm not buying that the bat had much to do with it. This was a freak accident that happened at the right time. The same thing has happened with kids getting hit in the chest with the ball. It amazes me how many sports deaths we have with children that involve hearts compared to 20 years ago. I never heard of this stuff when I was a kid. It usually takes someone getting hurt before we change safety standards in anything. It's human nature.
Composites for the most part were outlawed last year for LL At the college level it was 2 years ago that the BBCOR standard was adopted nationwide and it was adopted at the highschool level last year. IMO, more still needs to be done for the 12u. They still have aluminium bats that are too hot for the 46-60 base rules. I believe that they are changing some rules next year, not sure. USSSA (I believe)has already adopted a bat for 13u that has about the same rating as the BBCOR, just under a different name. This has been a known issue among us baseball parents for a long time. I actually refused to buy my son a hotter bat when he was 6 because he was hitting the ball too hard already fir the kids in that age group. He could hit the ball over 120' as a 6 year old. Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk 2
