Posted on 10/31/2009 10:47:17 PM PDT by steve-b
A jury on Wednesday found that the maker of Louisville Slugger baseball bats failed to adequately warn about the dangers the product can pose, awarding a family $850,000 for the 2003 death of their son in a baseball game.
The family of Brandon Patch argued that aluminum baseball bats are dangerous because they cause the baseball to travel at a greater speed. They contended that their 18-year-old son did not have enough time to react to the ball being struck before it hit him in the head while he was pitching in an American Legion baseball game in Helena in 2003.
The Lewis and Clark County District Court jury awarded a total of $850,000 in damages against Louisville, Ky.,-based Hillerich & Bradsby for failure to place warnings on the product....
(Excerpt) Read more at kcci.com ...
Last 34” bat I bought was $3, and it was a Louisville Slugger.
You can check out the cost of blanks at Woodcraft.
The story about “high quality” ash, the tight grained stuff from the Adirondacks was written at least two decades ago. First one I saw anyway, the good wood was running out.
Wooden bats break easier now because they are harvesting newer growth timber that grew faster and has larger annual rings.
I don’t have an opinion on this verdict. But, the baseball league ordered the aluminum bats, and the company was only providing them with what they wanted.
That said, as a parent of a young baseball player, I wish they didn’t use aluminum bats. The ball is hit off that kind of bat harder. Then, when there’s some lightening, the kids have to stop playing. I never knew baseball was so dangerous until my son started playing. I wish he’d play basketball instead. ;-)
“should .45 cal. ammo be banned because it is more harmful to a human body than .22 ammo?”
If you are entitled under the law to use deadly force to protect yourself, you are also entitled to do it in an effective way. .45 is certainly more effective than a .22
I assume that amateur baseball coaches aren’t choosing metal bats as the most effective way to kill their players. They are just looking for an easy way to save a few hundred dollars a season, that also happens to be tragically shortsighted.
This is the type of idiotic lawsuit that is killing the country.
They don't sound the same, but I never broke one (sharp ends and all that).
I don't see them as any more dangerous than a kid who can really wallop the ball.
The rest is up to the reaction time of the defensive players.
I am not sure if you understand the game of baseball. I think it would be difficult for the pitcher to read the warning on a bat.
This is the type of ruling that begs to be overturned on appeal. The game of Baseball is inherently risky. I believe that the kid's parents probably signed a release in order for the kid to play, holding the league and the sponsors free of liability in the event of injury or death caused by the inherent risk of the game. IE: the batted ball hit me in the head and killed me. This left the bat manufacturer as the only pockets left to pick.
Louisville Slugger should have counter sued. The kid obviously was not qualified to play in the league. A better pitcher would have been able to field his position.
This is the litigious society at work. The fact is that this kids death was a freak accident. As tragic as it is there is no true liability for anybody, but once you contact a lawyer they will do anything to get paid. When you enter a court room their is inevitably three lawyer in there with you. The prosecuting or plaintiff's lawyer, the defense lawyer, and the judge. The judge is there to make sure that the other two lawyers get paid. By the way, Coffee is supposed to be hot, darn near the boiling point, at least 180 deg this helps with the aroma and flavor by releasing the oils in the coffee. Almost all major vendors and your own home coffee machine is set to brew between 175 - 195 deg. The jury award was significantly reduced by the trial judge, and that award was appealed by McDonald's. McDonald's decided to settle out of court for an undisclosed, but reportedly significantly smaller amount of money. Most similar cases are tossed out of hand by the judge. McDonalds still brews its coffee at these temperatures, but has significantly sterner and more numerous warnings on the lid and cup.
When I was a kid in the 70’s we HAD to use wooden bats. They wouldn’t allow aluminum because they were afraid they would break and travel like a missle.
Are you serious? This is nuts! If the kid could play baseball he probably wouldn’t have got hurt! Accidents happen! That’s like saying a ticked ball beans a kid, seriously injures the kid and it’s the balls fault or the baseball makers fault because they made it too hard!!!!
Cost aside, pitchers should be taught to end their motion with the glove open in the vicinity of their neck.
I played fast-pitch softball...didn't pitch as fast as in baseball of course, but I was a lot closer to the batter.
Dad started teaching me to pitch when I was about eight years old. He was a baseball player, but alas had only daughters. One of the main things that he did was to rifle the ball back at me immediately to make certain that the natural end of my pitching motion was to end up with that glove protecting my head, upper chest, and neck.
I also endured hours of having line drives hit directly at me to help my reaction time.
By the time I was pitching H.S. Varsity at 14 years old, I had been the unhappy recipient of several fat lips, a couple of black eyes when I tipped it off of the end of the glove, a pair of broken glasses, and shin bones that probably look like a golf ball for all of the dents.
However, when it came time for the game situation, I was always able to catch or deflect the line drives that threatened my upper body. Many times, my GLOVE was thrown back into my face or neck when I caught one...and I will be honest...I took a couple of good ones off the legs when I couldn't dance out of the way.
That said, odd accidents still happen; but good pitching technique would help to alleviate some of the problem.
If I were on the jury, I would have just said the kid sucked at playing baseball or he shouldn't have been pitching. Some people shouldn't do certain things. In this case, the attorney shouldn't be allowed to tell he client, he can make millions for them. At the same time, I'm sure this scumbag attorney made between 25 and 50% of the winnings.
Sue themselves for not teaching the dummy to duck or put his glove up to protect himself! Stupid entitlement whore parents, some money makes it alllllll better.
SAFETY FIRST!!
Baseball needs a couple of rule changes. It should be played only with Nerf products, and only that way until we come up with a safer substitute. It should be played only at night to avoid sunburn, and on a specially padded field so that no one scrapes their skin sliding into home. We should do away with the competition of scoring runs and have the boys run in circles as in "Duck-Duck-Goose", or better yet, walk in circles in case one of the boys has an undetected heart problem. Think of all the improvements we can make that will eliminate risk.
I'm going to go have a nice cup of warm McDonald's coffee and think about other changes we can make to keep our kids safe.
Maybe they should just make them out of balsa wood and use wiffle balls sheesh.
Judicial-system-as-lottery PING!
Those jurors should be ashamed of themselves and those lawyers need to see those bats... up real close.
From http://www.thefreedictionary.com/
in·sip·id (n-spd) adj.
1. Lacking flavor or zest; not tasty.
2. Lacking qualities that excite, stimulate, or interest; boring.
[French insipide, from Late Latin nsipidus : Latin in-, not; see in-1 + Latin sapidus, savory (from sapere, to taste; see sep- in Indo-European roots).]
Regards,
Eagles2003... I recall reading about a lawsuit (also in the ‘70s, I think) where parents of a young child and their ambulance chaser sued a ceiling fan manufacturer.
They were awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars by some dumb ass jurors. The suit was brought because the fan in their house did not have a warning label that indicated the blades could cause injury when running.
The injury occurred because the brainless dad was standing up and tossing his toddler up in the air a bit, like most of us dads have done. However, this idiot tossed the kid into the running ceiling fan and caused bad head injuries.
They walk among us... and they breed.
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