dsheinem wrote:Hobie-wan wrote:dsheinem wrote:
I have also said the lawsuit is silly, but if the goal was to call attention to a genuine problem, then it has succeeded.
It may have succeeded, but that doesn't mean it was the right way to do it and it helps promote the problem we have in the US with people suing for stupid reasons.
If I want my 15 minutes of fame I could paint myself neon green and find a really busy public place downtown to run around naked screaming at the top of my lungs and trying to hump people (making sure a friend filmed it for youtube too), but that might not be the best way to go about it. Or heck, I could 'accidentally' release a big shiny silver balloon and say there's a 6 year old trapped in it.
If they wanted to raise awareness, they could have tried talking to the company. They could have talked to the news outlets that reported on the story already. They could have put together something for youtube. They could have talked to local news and then posted that on youtube.
Too many people's first thought anytime something goes wrong is to sue even in the case of accidents, lapses in common sense, or failure to take responsibility for your actions.
I completely agree with almost everything you said - they reflect my own thoughts on those lawsuits which are frequently an irresponsible way of trying to raise awareness about a problem that was self-inflicted.
On the other hand, how do we know that, in this case, the family didn't try more responsible methods and were met with no response? How do we know that the suit
was a knee-jerk reaction and not, instead, a last resort?
Speaking of knee-jerk reactions, most of the posts in this thread are making assumptions without understanding or knowing the full context. I am trying to give the plaintiffs the benefit of the doubt, as they may indeed be using the only avenue available to them in order to get more attention for a cause - it is not unlikely that they are devastated because they lost their son due to the additional velocity provided by aluminum and are looking to make sure others don't face the same tragedy...
I don't know the full context either - maybe they are money-grabbing half-wits...but it's a little surprising to see so much vitriol and assuredness of opinion regarding this case when there has been no indication by those piling on that the have any sense of the important details...
First off I said that the idea of banning aluminum bats from any "league" of baseball is a plausible and legite thing. A clarification that you did not make until after my post. So any comparison to knives and the sort is in relation to a "generic ban" of the product.
Secondly, only avenue? I highly doubt that. It shouldn't be an avenue. I don't care WHAT the specifics of their case are. It's NOT an avenue. It's NOT the manufacturers fault. The fault lays more in the hands of anyone participating in the game where the kid received the injury then it is the manufacturers fault. It's not like it was a "faulty" product, the product did what it does! And we probably would not find it fair or anything to sue any of the players in the game that played a role to some extent, may be hitting the ball, failure to catch the ball, failure to dodge the fucking ball.
No matter it is, the manufacturer is not at fault because the product is not fault. They won on the basis that the manufacturer failed to warn? WARN? It's a baseball bat, that's all the warning you need. Baseball === HARD.
So is it an ONLY avenue? No. Don't tell me media and the sort aren't viable avenues damn it. They are. Public mediation is a very viable avenue and legal and all the good shit. Suing is just a stupid cop out. Unless the baseball bat manufactured the bat with some fault to it known to cause damage unforeseen to normal use of the product and willingly releasing it with this precept is when it's their fault.
If a manufacturer released a toaster that lit on fire under normal use, and someone had their house burned down because of it... then yeah, that's sue worthy. That's the manufacturers fault. If the toaster lit on fire because someone stuck a newspaper in it, that's not the manufacturers fault.
But baseball bats are manufactured under the knowledge that they make balls ricochet off the surface of the bat at high velocity. They are purchased for that purpose, no other purpose. They make things go whack. Where in the "normal use" is this a failure on the manufacturer for creating a faulty product? No where.
A case like this may draw awareness to an issue in which kids are using stuff they shouldn't be using in a league... but is it really the extent we'd want people going. Do you really think it's a good idea to demean and destroy our legal system just to raise this awareness when there are TONS of other outlets to do it in. TONS. I mean really, why not sue the little league association for allowing the baseball bat? That's more fucking viable then the manufacturer. Nevermind the fact that the manufacturer is completely variable... why louiville? Because they just happen to be the product being used? When numbers of other manufacturers happen to exist as well. Would we blaim louville if I beat a man to death with their bat?
