How would you decide if on the Jury?

[cajuntec]

This is a stupid case, and the parents should be taken out and publicly beaten for trying to put the blame on someone else. As a parent myself, and someone who owned a pool for the first 3 years of my son's life, I took it upon myself to make sure that:

1) I watched him constantly, as closely as possible, particularly if he was anywhere near the door that led outside.
2) I installed a fence around my pool with a gate that required someone of adult strength to open.
3) I installed a pool alarm so if something did go into my pool - I knew about it instantly because a loud alarm went off inside the house that I could hear from anywhere. The alarm system did not negate me from watching my son - just was an additional layer of protection for my son's personal safety.

Most stickers or warning labels were created due to idiots and greedy people suing companies because of their own stupidity. I also throw the lawyers in their that represent those people in such cases - they are idiots too, and the cause of many of the problems we have in society these days. We have dumbed down society to the point that everything on the planet requires warning labels. When I opened my own fishing lure company, making spinnerbaits and jigs, I put the lead warning label on every single lure that I packaged. California was the only state that required it at the time, but since my baits could possibly make it to CA, I put the labels on it to keep from getting sued by some idiot that got lead poisoning from putting my lure in their mouth and chewing the paint off of it.

Society should understand:
Knives are sharp
Gunpowder explodes
Coffee is hot
Cigarettes are bad for your health

But people will continue to whittle the plastic off a shotgun shell with a knife while smoking a cigarette with their coffee cup in their lap. They deserve to cut themselves with the knife, burn themselves with the coffee getting 3rd degree burns on their crotch, drop their cigarette because of the burn, sending the embers to the shell powder so that it explodes in their face.

But then they will sue Ginsu, Winchester, Folgers and Marlboro and be rich a few months later... because of their own stupidity.

I'm sorry... did I just go off on a rant?

All the best,
Glenn

[wellingtontx]

Interesting responses...definitely shows the demographics of this board.

This case would almost certainly never make it to trial in Texas. Juries in all but probably 3 counties in Texas would find in favor of the parents - especially if the safer alternative argument is made. No insurance defense attorney or adjuster would let this go to trial.

Settlement value is probably in the range of $750K, with a confidentiality agreement.

Not saying it's wrong or right, just sayin'....

IMO - You are incorrect. Have handled many cases with better facts for the plaintiffs and certainly better arguments on negligence or products liability - the result is that the insurance carriers want them determined by a jury. Settlement values/estimates in the $750,000 are way too high.

Dont forget about the legal elements of negligence, one of which is proximate cause. The components of proximate cause include (1) cause-in-fact; and (2) forseeability. On the products side/design defect, Chapter 82 of the Civ. Prac. & Remedies Code controls and "safer alternative design" element is not met if the alteration or new design would have "substantially impaired the product's utility" - i.e., a doggie door. Just my two cents.

Jury Verdict for the Door Mftg. !

[Biggs]

Manufacture--- Its pure negligence on the parents fault

[Artos]

IMO - You are incorrect. Have handled many cases with better facts for the plaintiffs and certainly better arguments on negligence or products liability - the result is that the insurance carriers want them determined by a jury. Settlement values/estimates in the $750,000 are way too high.

Dont forget about the legal elements of negligence, one of which is proximate cause. The components of proximate cause include (1) cause-in-fact; and (2) forseeability. On the products side/design defect, Chapter 82 of the Civ. Prac. & Remedies Code controls and "safer alternative design" element is not met if the alteration or new design would have "substantially impaired the product's utility" - i.e., a doggie door. Just my two cents.

Jury Verdict for the Door Mftg. !

I would bet money the parents would win in the rgv.....it's a paradise for sue happy folks. That is 4 counties & I'm sure we are not alone in the state for sympathetic idiots who play on emotion instead of reality.

I get called every year for j.duty and never get picked. If the finalists I see are a jury of my peers, I better stay out of trouble. I swear, 70% should not be allowed to vote or even reproduce for that matter.

Sorry, but the values of the WWII generation are getting harder to come by every day.

[Reckless Cheri]

That's kind of the thought process I was having myself. Sometimes things aren't always as they seem.
It's a tough call.

What if you found out that the doggie door manufacturer had the option to add a piece to the doggie door for under $1 per door that would completely prevent any child from crawling through the space and chose not to, even after more than 35 similar injuries were reported, because it would drive their profits down?

It's hard to know which side of this case to agree with without knowing all of the facts.

For those of you who don't know all the facts about the McDonald's coffee case, here's a brief synopsis:
1. 79 year old lady went to buy coffee at McDonalds. She set the cup between her legs and opened the lid to put cream and sugar in. When she opened the lid, the entire contents of the coffee spilled in her lap due to the high temperature of the coffee.
2. She suffered third degree burns on and in her vagina, her inner thighs and her buttocks...over 6 percent of her body. She was hospitalized for eight days and had those areas skin grafted.
3. Her settlement demand was $20,000 to settle the case. McDonald's refused to settle.
4. During discovery, McDonald's produced over 700 incidents over a 10-year period where it's customers had suffered third degree burns from it's coffee. Coffee served at your home or elsewhere is between 135-140 degrees. McDonald's had a company-wide requirement that coffee be served at 185 degrees.
5. The Plaintiff's expert testified that at 185 degrees it would take 2-7 seconds for a liquid to cause third degree burns when applied to human skin. He also testified that even at 155 degrees the burns would decrease exponentially.
6. The jury awarded the Plaintiff $200,000 for her injuries and that amount was later reduced to $160,000.
7. The jury awarded punitive damages in the amount of $2.7 million. The punitive damages were later reduced to $480,000 (three times the compensatory damages).
8. After trial, the judge called McDonald's conduct reckless, callous and willful.
9. The case was settled and the amount remains confidential to this day.

[Bobby Ferguson]

If there is one thing that i am certain of it is everyone living must die in some way. Some go of old age but alot go earlier because of accidents and what not. Our society has got a mentality that when someone dies it has to be someones fault. Accidents happen everyday and in past generations a family would come together and get through it. I'm sure that the parents feel abosolutly terrible about this and are placing their anger somewhere it doesn't belong. How many millions of those doggie doors are out there in the US. They law of averages says something going to come or go through that isn't suppose to.

The simple fact is that if there has to be blame then it has to go to the parents.

[Bobby Ferguson]

This is a stupid case, and the parents should be taken out and publicly beaten for trying to put the blame on someone else. As a parent myself, and someone who owned a pool for the first 3 years of my son's life, I took it upon myself to make sure that:

1) I watched him constantly, as closely as possible, particularly if he was anywhere near the door that led outside.
2) I installed a fence around my pool with a gate that required someone of adult strength to open.
3) I installed a pool alarm so if something did go into my pool - I knew about it instantly because a loud alarm went off inside the house that I could hear from anywhere. The alarm system did not negate me from watching my son - just was an additional layer of protection for my son's personal safety.

Most stickers or warning labels were created due to idiots and greedy people suing companies because of their own stupidity. I also throw the lawyers in their that represent those people in such cases - they are idiots too, and the cause of many of the problems we have in society these days. We have dumbed down society to the point that everything on the planet requires warning labels. When I opened my own fishing lure company, making spinnerbaits and jigs, I put the lead warning label on every single lure that I packaged. California was the only state that required it at the time, but since my baits could possibly make it to CA, I put the labels on it to keep from getting sued by some idiot that got lead poisoning from putting my lure in their mouth and chewing the paint off of it.

Society should understand:
Knives are sharp
Gunpowder explodes
Coffee is hot
Cigarettes are bad for your health

But people will continue to whittle the plastic off a shotgun shell with a knife while smoking a cigarette with their coffee cup in their lap. They deserve to cut themselves with the knife, burn themselves with the coffee getting 3rd degree burns on their crotch, drop their cigarette because of the burn, sending the embers to the shell powder so that it explodes in their face.

But then they will sue Ginsu, Winchester, Folgers and Marlboro and be rich a few months later... because of their own stupidity.

I'm sorry... did I just go off on a rant?

All the best,
Glenn

I could not of said it better

[Texastaxi]

Cajuntec ... that was GREAT!

[Muygrande]

IMO - You are incorrect. Have handled many cases with better facts for the plaintiffs and certainly better arguments on negligence or products liability - the result is that the insurance carriers want them determined by a jury. Settlement values/estimates in the $750,000 are way too high.

Dont forget about the legal elements of negligence, one of which is proximate cause. The components of proximate cause include (1) cause-in-fact; and (2) forseeability. On the products side/design defect, Chapter 82 of the Civ. Prac. & Remedies Code controls and "safer alternative design" element is not met if the alteration or new design would have "substantially impaired the product's utility" - i.e., a doggie door. Just my two cents.

Jury Verdict for the Door Mftg. !

I agree completely. I do defense work and unless there are some bad facts that we are not aware of I would be happy to put this case on front of a fine Tarrant County jury. Unless the Plaintiff uncovers some actual evidence you might even get a judge to pour them out on summary judgment.

[psicoo]

There can be a huge difference between neglect and legal negligence. They may have only had their back turned for a minute or so because they were caring for a sibling or something - being good parents. But if a mistake (innocent or otherwise) causes harm, that's pretty much legal "negligence" most of the time.

It doesn't mean they were necessarily neglecting their baby or were bad parents. It just means their mistake caused the accident and it was very costly. They shouldn't be punished for it. God knows they've been punished WAY too much just by losing a precious baby. But, like you say, a doggie door company shouldn't be punished for the parents' mistake either.

I wonder if this was the very first time that the baby ever crawled through the doggie door - or even stuck his/her hand or a toy through the door and learned that it would open. If not, then the parents should have CERTAINLY been able to do the math after that. I wonder if they had any cute pictures of the baby going through the doggie door with the pool in the background.

True that. And I am a firm believer that most accidents are avoidable.

[denowt]

No representing, but he believed the door company was at fault.

Your "friend" is part of the reason this country is in the shape it's in. Sue-happy lawyers drive up the cost of everything, insurance, manufacturing costs, etc., etc.

This is typical thinking of a lawyer looking for a way turn the obvious around to make money. Sad thinking on your buddies part.

x10,000,000

It does sound like the family has a case though. They could be suing because of the fact that there were 36 other cases and nothing was done to prevent further accidents.

Guns accidently discharge all the time.
Many people on this forum have posted about bow limbs cracking/blowing up accidently all the time.
People have blowouts on their vehicle tires all the time.
Houses burn down because of faulty electrical plugs all the time.
Should we sue gun, bow, tire, and plug makers because there are documented cases of their products causing accidents?

What if you found out that the doggie door manufacturer had the option to add a piece to the doggie door for under $1 per door that would completely prevent any child from crawling through the space and chose not to, even after more than 35 similar injuries were reported, because it would drive their profits down?

To me it doesn't matter how many other cases there are.
If it was my house,
#1, I wouldn't have a doggy door installed in the first place.
#2, if the house already had one installed, I would have removed it because I'm smart enough to know that a crawling child can and eventually will crawl through it.

IMO, it may sound harsh, but, I believe this is survival of the fittest. If the parents of this child are that stupid to think that it is the door mfg's fault for their child death, they shouldn't be allowed to have children. The world doesn't need anymore children that grow up to be morons because their parents are morons.

Coffee is served hot. I know that and you know that. Hot liquids will scald. I know that and you know that. 145 degrees or 185 degrees, without a thermometer, neither you nor I would know that. Coffee is served hot. At 78 I hope I still know that. And why was she holding a hot cup of coffee between her legs with the lid off while driving anyway?

Common sense dictates that I not hold someone else responsible for something I have control over. That cup of coffee.

couldn't have said it any better.

[jeepbowhunter]

The parents had a lapse in judgement not the companies fault

[axisbuck24]

tragedy for sure but a warning would not fix the problem...manufacturer

X2 A warning label would not have prevented it.

[JimGun]

While I have tremendous sympathy for anyone losing their child, I can't understand why anyone would blame the door the child crawled through. I just wonder if they thought up the idea of bringing suit or was it at the instigation of a lawyer looking to squeeze a buck or two out of a sympathetic jury.