Dead Teen Sued for Flying Body Parts

Darh Abdomino

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Sep 20, 2010
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Depends on how they go about it. Paying off legal and medical bills, and the time she has to take off work, seems reasonable, especially since if you look closer and notice that there were fences in the area, and the teen made a dumb mistake. I wish she had chosen to avoid the courts to begin with and approached the family after a reasonable mourning period, but I can't fault her for wanting compensation for the physical and mental trauma that being hit with body parts can cause. Maybe it's a bit callous, but I only disapprove of her timing and approach.
 

Kopikatsu

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Darh Abdomino said:
Depends on how they go about it. Paying off legal and medical bills, and the time she has to take off work, seems reasonable, especially since if you look closer and notice that there were fences in the area, and the teen made a dumb mistake. I wish she had chosen to avoid the courts to begin with and approached the family after a reasonable mourning period, but I can't fault her for wanting compensation for the physical and mental trauma that being hit with body parts can cause. Maybe it's a bit callous, but I only disapprove of her timing and approach.
There's a thing called the statute of limitations. If she waited, there's a good chance that they wouldn't have allowed her to go through a lawsuit.
 

Darh Abdomino

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Kopikatsu said:
There's a thing called the statute of limitations. If she waited, there's a good chance that they wouldn't have allowed her to go through a lawsuit. Also, why would she be going to the parents? She's suing the kid's estate, not his parents.
My apologies, I assumed that the teen was a minor, I didn't see his age in there, and, in my area at least, the parents are responsible for their child's actions if they still are a minor. As far as I know, we kids don't have an estate to speak of. I still think it was a bit premature, but there's no need for vitriolic talk.
 

gphjr14

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18 years old is an adult by law and sure as hell is old enough to know better than to run out in front of trains. Googling the guy's name makes me think he had the mental capacity to know what he was doing was dangerous.
What the lady is doing is justified and isn't really all that new. Drunk drivers kill themselves all the time and in the process do damage to people and property. Their victims are entitled to sue and insurance companies have no problem going after their relatives even though they personally had nothing to do with it.

If it was a bruise I could be more sympathetic but the lady is in her 50s. Her bones aren't getting any stronger (menopause) and the fact that some were broken is something she will have to deal with for the rest of her life. The man didn't fall or slip into the train's path he ran in front of it.

In short I feel sorry mostly for the woman because she was just minding her own business and was injured by an 18 year old "kid's" stupidity and secondly for the guys family because his carelessness cost them immense heartache and a lawsuit.

People don't realize the consequences of their actions extend far beyond just them.
 

Yokai

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Oct 31, 2008
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She's not suing the concept of inertia? That's really the only thing suspect here. I'm going to go out on a limb here, but I'm pretty sure the poor dumb kid did not intend to turn himself into meat shrapnel aimed at the people on the platform.

You'd think some sense of common decency would prevent such audacious and self-centered petty retribution, but I guess not. Fucksake.
 

Lord Kloo

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Its an abnormal recklessness case, I'd give you another example of an English case where a woman gets mental trauma from seeing a motorcyclist crash and then sues despite not actually seeing only hearing and later seeing the results.. the reason this case failed was only due to not seeing the actual crash, otherwise she would have been perfectly entitled to cash for her trauma.. under law..

Under ENGLISH law I'd say shes defiantly up for some compensation.. the reasonable man wouldn't be crossing the railway line, he should have taken into account what would happen if he actually got hit by a train..

I hear you shout its morally wrong and I agree it is but the trouble is that if he is let off it'll make a precedent for future cases that don't favour the defendant so much.. as in all other reckless cases..
 

Treblaine

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Jul 25, 2008
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And he thought his day couldn't get any worse.

I feel real sorry for the kid, but I imagine it must have been instantaneous and relatively painless. Course he got denied a future and frankly this whole lawsuit is monumentally trivial in comparison. I mean he was 18, that means he is his own man and not his parents responsibility. But how much money does could this 18 year old have left? Is this woman going to claim his old Xbox?!?

My prediction: this will go to trial simply so the lawyers can do their circus, demand to get paid for not achieving anything and the (relatively un)injured woman will get precisely jack and shit from this ridiculous lawsuit. This is just lawyers justifying their existence. Hell, it could all just be a publicity stunt for the law firm:

"yeah, I'm such a good lawyer I was able to sue a teenage boy who was already dead! Sure, I was only able to claim his Limp Bizkit CD collection as damages but I consider that a victory for what an awesome lawyer I am"
 

CrystalShadow

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Apr 11, 2009
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BRex21 said:
CrystalShadow said:
Yes, but the two are not mutually exclusive. You can get private insurance in just about every country that has a public health system.

For that matter, I had an accident in Australia, I needed stitches, and I had that done within 10 minutes of getting to hospital too. And that didn't cost me anything personally. (obviously, it's paid for with taxes. But that's not the same thing.)

We were in a car crash at some point too... They didn't waste time with that either.

Meanwhile, in the UK, which is a slightly different, and perhaps somewhat more strained system, it takes ages to get an appointment for something which isn't an emergency, (like, 1 to 2 months), but if it's something serious that needs immediate care you aren't left waiting around for hours either.

Public healthcare and being made to wait aren't a given. (Though I have to say listening to financial arguments about the NHS is annoying. The NHS is pretty much the cheapest healthcare system as a fraction of GDP of any western nation. The US's is the most expensive - And the actual effect it has on people's health is less useful, even for the wealthy that can afford the best of the best.)
My stitches didn't cost me anything either, I travel for work and have corporate health insurance. What i'm saying is that the quality of care in American hospitals particularly in low priority areas and diagnostic testing is by far superior to any single payer system i have ever seen, and i have had the, possibly unfortunate, opportunity to see a few different ones. Chances are what your best experience in an E.R. in Australia (I am guessing here as I never managed to injure myself in Australia although i did get stuck in a spider web) is comparable to an ordinary day for someone with good insurance in the USA.
The issue isn't that national healthcare systems don't work, they do, quite effectively for everyone. There is however a very valid debating point that in a single payer system like Canada and many European countries expects people in higher income brackets to pay more for the same service. Essentially switching to a system like Canada would result in poorer care for them. There IS a reason wealthy people from all over the world flock to the US for surgeries and treatments. However I am not arguing that this is CORRECT, I think its pathetic that a first world nation like the USA does not have public healthcare, and yes they let nearly 50,000 people die every year because they don't have the money to buy treatment which in itself is sick HOWEVER: I know for a fact that Australia has had hallway medicine issues, uses a public private partnership system that unfairly distributes resources to wealthier regions and deals with a chronic shortage of doctors. It is hardly the ideal system you are making it out to be, and certain Americans prevent change as they know they are better off with the status quo.
I'm certainly not implying any of these systems are perfect. Far from it. I've had some serious problems with all of them.
But it's frequently made out by certain groups as if it would be the worst thing in the world to have a public health system, which simply isn't the case.

(And I gave an example from personal experience, just as an aside. Waiting around for ages was never the kind of problem I had anywhere in Australia. Confusing, inconsistent care, perhaps. The UK system is quite different in effect, and has a different set of problems, but that's all rather academic.)

In any event, I probably shouldn't comment on the US too much, since I've never seen what care is like there assuming you can afford it.
 

FinneganII

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Sep 23, 2009
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Is it bad that when I read the article, I imagined a Fallout 3 style slow-motion ragdoll death with the body parts flying everywhere?
 

Kopikatsu

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Yokai said:
She's not suing the concept of inertia? That's really the only thing suspect here. I'm going to go out on a limb here, but I'm pretty sure the poor dumb kid did not intend to turn himself into meat shrapnel aimed at the people on the platform.
The level of retardation that goes into running down train tracks (Especially WITH a train incoming) means that nobody should have any level of sympathy for him except for MAYBE the family. In this case, the defense doesn't have a leg to stand on. (Yeah, I made a joke at the expense of a dead kid. Does he care? Fuck no, because hes dead. Dead people don't care about all that much.)

Anyway, this case is easy to turn into an analogy. If a drunk driver crashes into a car waiting at a red light, and the drunk driver dies while the person just sitting there sustained heavy injuries...would you say that the person who wasn't doing anything wrong doesn't deserve to at least be able to receive medical treatment?

Edit: And before anyone goes 'That's an awful analogy! Being drunk means you aren't in control of your actions or whatever!'

If you're running on train tracks with a train incoming, then there is obviously something very wrong with you.
 

Nyaliva

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Sep 9, 2010
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Blablahb said:
ravensheart18 said:
If he was in a car accident, died, an someone else was injured do you think that they wouldn't expect compensation just because he also died? Not a chance.
Big difference there: making a mistake while driving a car, causing a crash and damages is a decision, and one with a very direct link between the damage and the decision. Getting run over by a train is not. He wanted to run across the tracks, not have himself splattered all over the place to hurt others. The link between the kid's bad decision and the consequences is pretty weak, and shouldn't lead to this silly lawsuit.

The moral of the story perhaps should be that she should drink some milk. If being merely falling to the ground causes her to break several bones, something is really really wrong. That's not supposed to happen untill a very advanced age.
I'm afraid this point doesn't work, I don't believe that if he was part of the car analogy he intended to die and hurt others either. If you were to properly compare the points, you'd say that someone made the bad decision to drive unsafely which makes them liable, and someone chose to run across the tracks which is also unsafe and a choice. Also, it's much easier to foresee an oncoming train than to foresee unsafe driving practices, and in fact many car accidents occur through no fault of the driver. SOrry, I'm rambling, but yeah, your comparison is invalid.

Although you do have a point, even if he did make the unsafe choice to run across train tracks, he surely didn't expect to get hit, let alone for his body parts to hit and hurt others.
 

Steinar Valsson

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Aug 28, 2010
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Shadowkire said:
Steinar Valsson said:
As someone not from the States, I have always wandered how the U.S judicial system works... A woman was sued by a burgler that broke his hand trying to rob her, he won. It's the frivolous lawsuits buisness. People claiming this and that for money.

I understand the woman that sued from the point of view that she really got injured and the boy didn't exactly do the smartest thing... but she will try to sue the estate (parents since he was not 18) for so much more then she deserves and now the parents will maybe have to pay loads of money on top of their sons death. It's just not right.
1. The story of a burglar suing after being injured in the middle of a burglary is a lie, google it. You won't find an actual case like that, you may find some reports of people who tried, but none even make it into the court room.

2. He was 18, http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-train-fatality-suit-20111229,0,1641941.story.

3. Unless you think she deserves $0, how did you come to the conclusion the lady would seek any more than what would cover her medical bills and loss of income?
1. Well, you can sue for that and get it trough the hearing, a judge will say "let's keep it going" and then it's a matter if the jury will agree. Strange lawsuits have been made and won with ridiculous amounts of money.

2. My facts wrong, but the parents will have to deal with it nonetheless.

3. Human nature in many cases, greed that is. But that's just the likely resault. My hope is she just sues for what she lost and a calculated decision is made, not suing for millions. But let's just hope she isn't all that greedy.
 

McNinja

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Sep 21, 2008
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Why are these people running across tracks to get to their trains? If that's the only way to get to a train, the train station needs to renovate their establishment so it isn't as dangerous. I also don't know why these people think it's a great idea to run across train tracks in the first place, nor how they can't hear a couple-hundred-ton TRAIN barreling down the tracks. How do you miss that?
 

Treblaine

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Jul 25, 2008
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Kendarik said:
Treblaine said:
And he thought his day couldn't get any worse.

I feel real sorry for the kid, but I imagine it must have been instantaneous and relatively painless. Course he got denied a future and frankly this whole lawsuit is monumentally trivial in comparison. I mean he was 18, that means he is his own man and not his parents responsibility. But how much money does could this 18 year old have left? Is this woman going to claim his old Xbox?!?

My prediction: this will go to trial simply so the lawyers can do their circus, demand to get paid for not achieving anything and the (relatively un)injured woman will get precisely jack and shit from this ridiculous lawsuit. This is just lawyers justifying their existence. Hell, it could all just be a publicity stunt for the law firm:

"yeah, I'm such a good lawyer I was able to sue a teenage boy who was already dead! Sure, I was only able to claim his Limp Bizkit CD collection as damages but I consider that a victory for what an awesome lawyer I am"
Does no one on this forum understand the concept of liability insurance? In North America at least, many homeowners/renters insurance policies cover general liability. That could be easily what they are going after. Unless the lawyer is just trying to make case law for the sake of case law (which sometimes does happen), cases don't move forward if someone is judgement proof, the lawyers have rent to pay...
(I think we understand Liability insurance as a concept but I just don't think anyone considers its relevance as a rail road is pretty far removed from a household.)

Well I might suggest that although lawyering is important work there may be more lawyers than there are actually worthy cases. Or that there ARE enough worthy cases that lawyers are not taking for various reasons, instead these macabre proceedings.

But of course in this case everyone is playing their cards close to their chest and depending a lot on gauging opinion and playing the best angle, I doubt this forum will every figure out their real motivations any time soon. Beyond the obvious reasons that people like to be given money, though I ascribe to the theory that people are usually motivated by more than money.