I thought that you guys would find this interesting.
LAWNMOWER MAN
by Randy Cassingham
By any measure, it was a tragic accident. In April 2004, Orvil Reedy
was mowing the lawn with a rider mower in front of his house in
Daleville, Virginia. Reedy and his wife, Roberta, operated a day care
facility from the house. One of their charges was Justin Simmons, 4.
Roberta was watching the boy, and went into the house to change his
younger brother's diaper. She left Justin there, sitting on the lawn,
unattended. Orvil kept mowing, heading up a slope.
The slope was too steep: the mower rolled backward and stalled. He
tried to restart it, but then noticed two tiny legs sticking out from
under the multi-bladed mower's deck. He screamed.
Roberta came running, but it was too late: Justin was dead. Is it
outrageous for someone whose profession it is to care for small children
to allow them to be anywhere near a machine that could easily kill them?
You bet. Thus his parents, Ron and Kristie Simmons, sued, demanding $6
million for Justin's wrongful death. The Reedys had insurance: their
insurance company apparently immediately offered the full amount of the
policy, $100,000, as a settlement. It wasn't enough; it probably wouldn't
be enough for most families whose child was killed in such a violent way
due to apparent negligence of a day car provider. Of course, the day care
providers would never be able to pay $6 million, so someone else was
added to the suit. Can you guess who? Take your time to try to figure it
out.
-v-
Since the Reedys only had $100,000 worth of insurance, and the Simmons
family wanted $6 million, they also named the manufacturer of the
lawnmower to the suit, MTD Products Corp. What did MTD have to do with
the accident? The suit complained that there was no safety device to stop
the mower's blades from turning anytime the mower rolled backwards.
Is such a safety device standard on other brands? No. In fact, NO
mower has such a safety device and, according to MTD's attorney John
Fitzpatrick, no device like that has ever even been tested. Further, such
a device has never even been suggested by any safety agency, or anyone
else, before the accident in question.
Still, the case went to trial against the Reedys and MTD in June 2006.
In the trial, MTD's attorney laid the blame on the Reedys. He pointed out
that Orvil Reedy had not attempted to obtain an owner's manual for the
16-year-old lawn mower and had not paid any attention to the warning
labels on the mower.
Amazingly, just before the case went to the jury for deliberation, the
Simmonses dropped the Reedys from the suit. It is unclear whether they
had accepted the original insurance settlement or not, but the jury only
had to decide the case against MTD.
You, dear reader, are a member of the jury too -- you're a juror in
the Court of Public Opinion. How would YOU rule in this case? You may
throw it out, and even award damages to MTD. Or you may find for the
Simmonses, awarding anywhere from $1 to the $6 million they asked for, or
even more if you find MTD's conduct to be "outrageous". But you *cannot*
order the Reedys to pay a cent: they were dropped from the suit. OK, so
how do you rule?
-v-
The jury deliberated for 10 hours before finding that MTD was at fault
for not inventing a safety device that no one else has, or maybe has even
thought of before this accident.
"We're just hoping that we make a difference," said Theresa Reed, who
served on the seven-person jury in the case. "We just want the industry
to see that there's a problem that needs to be fixed."
"The jury has spoken loud and clear," said the Simmons's lawyer, Brent
Brown, after his triumph. "The protection of small children is one of the
most important obligations of society." He said the company was sued not
to get rich, but to "get the attention" of the mower industry.
The jury awarded Ron Simmons and his wife Kristie $500,000 each, and
Justin's now-3-year-old brother, Josh, $1 million for a total of $2
million.
"I find it incredulous that a jury no longer cares about common
sense," complained Brown, MTD's attorney. He promises an appeal of the
"nonsense" verdict.
I'm sure not going to fault the parents for wanting some justice for
their child, but that justice needs to come from a rational source. The
mower didn't have a safety device which didn't exist when it was made in
1988. In fact, that safety device doesn't exist NOW. Worse, it's not even
clear that the safety device the plaintiff's lawyer came up with after
the fact, even if it was now invented, tested and installed on mowers,
would have prevented Justin's death. How could a company "reasonably
foresee" such a thing?
What's the real cause of this accident? The people hired to watch
after Justin failed in their responsibility; the child was left
unattended near dangerous machinery. Yet the people responsible for
watching after him were let off the hook, and a company with deep pockets
was made to pay for their failure, even though they could not have
reasonably done a thing to prevent the accident. Why is the intentional
act of holding MTD responsible any less outrageous than the Reedys
unintentional act?
SOURCE:
1) "Lawn Mower Company Liable in Boy's Death", Roanoke Times, 18 June
2006
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