Lawsuit alleges Son Of Beast improperly maintained prior to accident

I'm not sure I get it. Sue because you got hurt, sure. But suggest that the ride isn't maintained or inspected? Please... they have mountains of paperwork indicating otherwise.

Wow, that didn't take long to happen. *** This post was edited by FLYINGSCOOTER 7/25/2006 9:29:31 AM ***

Maybe if they can prove it wasn't maintained properly they might be able to prove intent. The greedy company, trying to make more money, cut back on needed maintenance procedures and look what happened?
We ask for 5 million, your honor. Thanks, now let's go play golf.

*** This post was edited by FLYINGSCOOTER 7/25/2006 9:34:41 AM ***

I saw this comming.

I join crazy horse, I'm just surprised it took this long.

I'm just curious to see if anyone else joins in on this lawsuit or if they will file seperate complaints.

I just didn't like the way that the news reported, "perhaps they knew something was wrong with this ride"...or something like that. SOB doesn't open with the park alot, but to say that they would open it anyway "knowing" it had problems is just plain dumb.

Poor Cedar Fair.

I can see it now. Some blood-sucking lawyer came in the picture and said something like, well, it probably wasn't Kings Islands' fault, but I'm pretty confident that we can make someone pay. Not only that, they are likely to settle out of court so that it doesn't go public. I just wish for once that KI's lawyers would just go to court and break these people down for the greedy bastards that they are. And, I am not referring to any of those that were actually injured.

If there defense is "the ride isn't properly maintained" they will clearly lose. The ride IS properly maintained and operated. Their defense needs to target the rides design flaws and Paramount (CF's) awareness of the rides problem-plagued history. Then they will win.

Most likely the lawsuit will be directed towards recovering medial expenses related to the accident. The insurance company for PKI will try to settle this and move on.

Uh, when you get on a ride, do you not have reasonable assurance that you aren't going to get hurt? If I got on something and it broke bones, I'd sue too. How does that make me a "greedy bastard?"

Agreed that it will probably settle out of court and we'll never hear another thing about it.

Actually, I'm surprised that the suit has already been filed. I figured it wouldn't be filed until early July of 2008. That's the way this kind of thing USUALLY goes.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Assuming these people are asking for medical expenses only, I can't say I blame them. Like Jeff said, guests don't expect to get hurt at an amusement park, and even though this incident probably wasn't the fault of Kings Island, it wouldn't hurt to offer as much assistance as possible.

When these people start asking for a few million though, the "greedy bastard" comment fits.

Speaking of lawsuits, was the lightning strike in the parking lot case settled out of court?

This country is so sue happy. Unless you got seriously hurt or you got outstanding hospital bills, then I don't see the point. The park did everything they had to and the accident was caused by something that is almost impossible to detect during their normal inspections.

But that doesn't excuse the park from liability. They own the machine, and you expect that machine to thrill you without hurting you. You know I'm big on the "stuff happens" philosophy, but regardless of where you can attribute the fault, even if it's that of the manufacturers and engineers, there was something not right.

I'm not advocating huge payouts, but in a case like this, I doubt any company would simply say, "Let us take care of your medical bills" without some incentive (like not losing more money in court).

Above someone said poor Cedar Fair...actually I dont think they could sue CF only because Paramount still had ownership of the parks at the time of the accident, and the official take over took place after the accident.

Remember, people were suing Six Flags over the Worlds of Adventure I think for the drowning accident after the park was sold to Cedar Fair.

Cedar Fair took control of the parks on June 30. The accident happened on July 9...

Any attorney who files a lawsuit that doesn't include Cedar Fair, Viacom, CBS, the ride manufacturer, and the girl over at the Dippin' Dots cart who should have noticed the poor condition of the ride isn't worth his fee. Find out who owned the trees the wood came from and sue them too.

Medical expenses is one thing, but I'm sure the suit will include things like mental anguish, loss of income, loss of companionship (the husband's had to "do without" since the wife's injury), etc.

But seriously, without knowing what the exact cause of the accident was, how do you allege a pattern of poor maintenance, operation, and inspection? Is it something that happened that day? month? this year? the ride before? At this point without knowing exactly what happened, how do you assign liability?

It's not CBS' problem, and it sure as hell isn't Viacom's. Any lawyer who would go after them isn't worth his fee.