What's the difference between having an abandoned car on your property as a potential trouble spot or a swimming pool? Or a large piece of land that is close to wild animals?

I fail to see where being negligent in any scenario gives any parent a free pass or excuse.

YOu can be negligent with/without financial resources.

Sad? Absolutely.

Is there blame to be placed on the parents? Absolutely.

That's great. Makes those helmets look like pretty good investments. It's funny how much more safety conscious people have become. My Dad used to tell us about an amusement park he went to as a kid in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He said the rides were insane. They had one contraption that consisted of a spinning horizontal disc, actually more of a flat cone. The kids got on the disc and tried to grab for the point in the middle to keep from getting thrown off. The catch was that the disc had imbedded copper rivets right where kids would try to grab on. The operator had a switch that sent electrical current to the copper rivets, so the kids would have to let go and get thrown off, taking with them whoever got in their way. Try getting insurance for something like that these days.

The other thing that amazes me is that people used to play hockey without helmets or face guards, including goalies.

I also like the part about teaching your kids that they only have to obey the laws you like.

That ride was designed to keep operators from getting bored! ;)

I can easily argue that there is no negligence involved with leaving a car unlocked on your own driveway, with kids around. Just about all of them have a steering and shift lock preventing the vehicle from rolling.

But, if you wish to argue leaving your keys in the vehicle, with the vehicle unlocked, then I'll agree with you.

As timely as today's headlines. Four year old boy found dead after he was off riding his ATV in the country.

http://denverpost.com/news/ci_2922715

I skimmed through this thread and there have been several comments about where the line is between responsibility and negligence. It raises the question to me of what level of care or oversight is deemed responsible for a parent. While I agree that a vehicle trunk is a foreseeable risk, it might not be foreseeable to all. As a similar case in point, it was only a few years ago that advertisements warning of the dangers of abandoned refrigerators and freezers started to appear. In the ads, folks were advised to lock the box shut, or remove the door completely.

So does a parent providing a parental level of care have an obligation to make sure there are no hazards in, on or around their home? I agree they ought to, but what is the parents responsibility here? Any ideas of statutes?

I'm in agreement with Bot regarding the responsibility of the parent to ensure that no harm comes to their children for whatever reason. If you have an abandoned refrigerator or an abandoned vehicle on your property, and a child gets injured or killed, you are responsible. If you have a child who runs out into the street and gets killed by a vehicle, you are responsible.

But, negligence is a completely different matter. Now the burden is higher. You knew, or should have known that a specific danger exists and you did nothing to prevent that danger from harming the child.

As an example, if you allow your five year old to play, unsupervised in the front yard, and that child runs into the street and is killed, you are negligent. You knew, or should have known, that a five year old cannot be expected to avoid running into the street.

But, if you have an abandoned vehicle on your property and the kids climb into the trunk, I'm simply not buying the fact that you are negligent, based strictly on these facts.

When was the last time you even saw a refrigerator you could lock yourself in? I'm not sure I've ever seen one -- maybe on the Andy Griffith show??? :confused:

I played Mites hockey without a face mask :eek: and took a few sticks in the face as well, needless to say high sticking was strictly enforced. The main reason helmets are more popular today is weight, I raced BMX and had to wear motorcycle helmets that bobbed my head around like a bobble head and we only wore helmets for downhill when ski racing again it was all about weight. I took a few nasty spills and crashes on bikes, skis and skate boards that knocked me out and made it with only a couple trips to the hospital for head injuries which was pretty good since I was a competitive skier from first grade on up.

.....and, to this day, you can't dispose of an old refrigerator without taking off the door first. :confused:

He was negligent for not searching there before calling the police. Had he done so within a reasonable time frame, those kids might still be alive today.

He would be considered negligent if he did not perform any search.

He was not negligent for failing to search the trunk.

The police have nothing to do with it.

Well, I'll defer to narwhal for his official opinion on that score. In any case, it was inconceivably irresponsible, and his failure to take that perfectly reasonable and expected step cost those kids their lives.

What does this have to do with a parked car with a steering lock and a shift lock??

What does a lawsuit have to do with negligence? Do they need to prove negligence in order to collect damages? AFAIK, all that is required is to prove responsibility. On that subject, there is no issue.

Don't remember from the AG show but the magnetic seals on most modern freezers and refrigerators are pretty strong compared to most young'ns. If you're talking about the fridges with a latch, believe it or not they are still in use amongst the pooor in our country. A house i lived at while at school had several of this type. Not too many years ago we built stuff that would last most of a lifetime, so i'm pretty sure they are around in abundance.

Also while I'd think any self-respecting parent would feel responsible for any malady that happens to their kids, there has to be a standard criteria to determine when the law perceived them as negligent.

By extension, would being too poor to afford a new refrigerator, or not having the $$ to dispose of an abandoned vehicle make a parent negligent?

Do we know, for a fact, that he made no efforts to look for the kids?

If so, then he is not only irresponsible, but also negligent. The first thing to do when you kid is missing is to search every possible place you can think of until you find them.

However, it does ring close to home. The neighbor, who I'm not fond of in any way, apparently called the police when she returned home and all her three kids were not threre. She didn't do any searching or attempting to contact neighbors to see where they might be. Police came over here, probably thinking that I kidnapped them. I told the police that the bimbo probably told the kids to stay at a neighbor's house and forgot who the neighbor was. Sure enough, the kids turned up somewhere at some friend's house. I never found out the details.

I only know that if he did search, his effort was not adequate. A reasonable seach of his own property would have yielded results.

Was it his car? If it was I guess that explains why they aren't sueing the owner.

From a previous post.

From the article: "One of the boys had played previously in the car, which was owned by Anibal's maternal grandmother. It had been sitting for about three weeks in a shaded, weedy corner of the Cruz family's yard."

Interesting.

So, what's the standard for negligence? Do they simply need a jury to agree that he knew or should have known that the abandoned vehicle posed a risk of injury to a child? This would meet the requirement?

Wouldn't it be possible to convince a jury that any injury to a child is negligence? For example, the neighbor's kid is over at my house and is playing in the yard. I'm not watching them every minute. The kid runs out into the street and gets hit by a vehicle. It could be argued that I am negligent for failing to watch the kid while the kid was in my care.

This goes back to Bot's position. If any harm comes to a child, up to the age of 12, an adult is negligent.

I've got a problem with this entire approach to negligence. But, I'll bet the jury won't (with a good lawyer, of course). ;)

OK, that clears it up. I was thinking that you were concerned about the vehicle rolling. I was not thinking about the possibility that the vehicle would be converted into an oven.

The entire deal with "attractive nuisance" really frosts my ass. You own a piece of private property, which, in theory, should be off limits to anyone else. However, you can be held liable if a child trespasses on this property and gets injured. :pukeface:

They actually broadcast TV commercials here encouraging people to kick car windows in if there are pets or children in need of rescue during the summer.

The entire case hinges on 1. Did he have a duty to protect these children from getting trapped in that car?

I think you could easily argue that he did.

But, this comes around full circle to Bot's position. Anytime you have a child under a certain age (say 12), it could successfully be argued that the adult has a duty to protect the child from harm. And, if any harm comes to the child, for whatever reason, the duty was breached. And, then, by definition, the adult was negligent.

I just refuse to accept this argument in many situations.

With regard to this specific case, I suppose it could go either way.

Precisely.

Why should I be hung out to dry on "attractive nuisance" when the parent is negligent?

I thought you were in agreement with it? :confused:

It would have to be pro bono.

I didn't mean to imply any legal entrainment. I'm talking guilty conscience.

pro bono.............Narwhal.............. :eek:












:D

Hell, if I lived where you live I'd kick-in my own windows.

Well, guilty conscience is a matter of personal emotion, so, it could go either way.

All my discussions were relevant to legal "negligence".

As far as an individual feeling "negligent" if something happens to a child under their care, I'm sure that's a distinct possibility in many cases.

But, the term is really a legal term and should be discussed as such.

Shoot, we could've save a lot of hot air and electrons if we'd only known.

Or as Rosanna Rosanadana said, "Nevermind!"

A vast majority of molestations occur by someone the family knows.

If you protect the kids too much, its just as bad as being neglegent. It goes to the same concept of germs, grow up in a bubble, and you dont develope anti bodies.

It isnt to say parents should be wreckless, but its just that I see today over protection is the name of the game, and its harmful. It partly because of the PC crowd and women having more power now. It needs to be more balanced. Women have a natural inclination to protect, men to explore and take risks.

A great example is women bundling up their babies. They think its better safe than sorry, yet factually, it turns out that overbundling your baby while sleeping is more harmful than underbundling them and allowing them to be too cold. However, the affects of overbundling them cannot be directly correlated as easily as the "supposed" effects of underbundling them, hence women overbundle, even if you explain why its harmful.

I saw a kid fall off his bike and landed on his head, he had a helmet on, he never even put up his arms to protect his head, no need. I have 5 kids, two adults now, they grew up just fine, no major injuries. The three younger ones, 8, 10 and 10 just spent a year plus, living in a house totally under construction, there were alot of dangerous situations, but they learned how to avoid them and no major injuries occured.

We still dont have a railing on some parts of the second floor, they know to avoid it.

Dont think it is so much different today than in Beavers world. Its just that when something occurs today, we are much more readily made aware of it. Believe it or not, they had molesters back then too.

You have to have a balance, but having a car with a broken trunk is just plain stupid. I doubt the guy was so busy he didnt have time to fix something to prevent this.

.....ahh......yeah. ;)

as grandma bandana rosanna danna always said, Its always somethin.

Man you kill me :huepfenic

Dammit, you did it again. I've got to instruct you on the meaning of those smiley faces............." :D " to be exact.

It's quite admirable that you are able to accomplish that level of pro bono work. It's certainly not insignificant at those levels.

me and my friend were going to take his nephew to the boardwalk the other day and i overheard the mother telling the seven year old to remember to stay close to us because neither of us are parents and we might not realize that we need to keep a REALLY close eye on him. and she told it to him just like that. i thought it was unnecessary but after awhile i thought it was responsible parenting and utilizing a chance to reinforce an important concept to the young lad.

You belong to wrong dojo -- no bad student -- only bad teacher. Go see Mr. Miagi. Oh, and next time, use electric window switch -- much cheaper in long run.

Wait a second, you can somehow write off pro bono work? :eek: hmmmm :beerchug:

I'm sure that he could write off any expenses that he paid for filing fees and court costs for that work.