Lawsuit alleges Son Of Beast improperly maintained prior to accident

Mental anquish is real. So is loss of income.

Honestly, You'll never know the outcome. CF and the parties involved will reach a agreement that probably includes a no fault, non disclosure as part of the settlement.

Honestly, If I got hurt through no fault of my own that seriously (Broken sternum/impacted teeth) Id sue too and so would most of you. Don't lie about it.

I don't see this as trying to rape the park, I see it as compinsation, same as a car accident that wasn't your fault ect. The allegations only imply punative is being asked for. Im sure unless they take it to trial, They'll be treated fairly

But on the otherhand,
Lawyer in front of a jury of bleading hearts.

My life was changed forever, I couldn't work for six months and will never be the same. The smile I once had will never be the same. My neck will hurt for the next 2000 years ect. ect.

CF don't want that as the ball isn't in their hands when a jury and judge are involved.

Same with the other parties .

As for the three to five that claimed to be on the ride that weren't I bet they get a big fat lawsuit against them from CF for Liable.

Chuck, who can't speak for CF but just stating what I think will happen, And Jeff's right, CBS is probably cleared once CF announced full control of operations.

It's not necessarily true the CBS won't be sued or can't be found at fault. If the lawyer is going for a pattern of poor maintenance, he would have to show how the ride deteriorated over time. This would surely involve CBS since Cedar Fair only had the ride for about a week and a half. CF's time is too short to negatively impact the ride even if it received no maintenance under CF. The lawyer will try to build a timeline of deterioration, and if the verdict goes to the plaintiff, the court may find CBS 95% at fault and CF 5% at fault, or something along those lines.

---

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?"

---

I was talking about those who were not injured in the accident. Which is what I said.

Actually, Chuck, if I were injured in an accident such as this, I wouldn't sue the park until I'd exhausted other avenues of recourse. I'd attempt to reach a settlement with the park first, and if the park's reaction is, "Sue us," then I would.

This is a case where there was clearly something wrong with the ride, and as Jeff suggests, anybody riding should have had a reasonable expectation of not getting seriously hurt. It's a case where the park's liability for the rider's injuries is probably reasonably well established. A claim for medical and certain other expenses would not be unreasonable, and it is very likely that such a claim would be equitably settled without the involvement of a plaintiff's attorney. Which is good for everybody because as soon as the plaintiff's attorney gets involved, he takes a third of the settlement. THAT is the reason for NOT filing suit.

One files suit when the claims process breaks down. When the settlement offered is not equitable or adequate, or when the defendant denies liability, then it's time to call an attorney. Then the settlement necessarily has to be much larger, just because there are so many more parties that have to be paid, including the attorney and the court.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.
(Can you tell that I grew up in a family of insurance agents?)

"It's not necessarily true the CBS won't be sued or can't be found at fault. If the lawyer is going for a pattern of poor maintenance, he would have to show how the ride deteriorated over time. This would surely involve CBS since Cedar Fair only had the ride for about a week and a half. CF's time is too short to negatively impact the ride even if it received no maintenance under CF. The lawyer will try to build a timeline of deterioration, and if the verdict goes to the plaintiff, the court may find CBS 95% at fault and CF 5% at fault, or something along those lines. "-Pete

I definately agree with this. Like I said, the lawsuit isn't going to be won proving that the ride wasn't maintained or inspected (because it was.) The win is gonna come in the form of "look at this rides problem plagued history."

I think that if I were seriously injured on a roller coaster, I would do what RideMan said, and attempt to reach a settlement with the park. If that didn't work then yeah, I would sue for my medical expenses, but only that much. Anything more is just being greedy, IMO

Not your medical expenses, Avaro. Your expenses related to the incident.

There is a difference, and the difference can be substantial. Heck, your medical expenses are probably already covered anyway.

In fact, the difference between the medical expenses and the related expenses is probably where most of the disagreement comes in between the plaintiff and the defendant.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Even if Viacom/CBS let the ride deteriorate over time, it is still in Cedar Fair's hands to inspect it every day- they didn't have to run the ride if it wasn't up to standards. This is why I wasn't crazy about CF taking over the parks mid-season- there was no time to inspect everything down to the bolts before change of hands.

That is exactly why CBS can still be held accountable. Things are not always as simple as they seem. If it can be proven that CBS let some things slip that were hidden from whatever inspection Cedar Fair could reasonably do in the time allocated, CBS could be found to be substantially at fault. Don't forget that this ride was licensed and inspected by the State of Ohio prior to Cedar Fair having control. Cedar Fair would have no reason to suspect that the ride needed anything beyond a normal daily inspection.

Saying that, I believe that PKI maintenance is excellent, and this is just one of those things that just happens. No one could have predicted or found the defect. But, the plaintiff's lawyer will certainly try to put a spin on it to prove otherwise.

Last night WHIO ran a real quick little blurb about the lawsuit stating that the woman suing cannot go back to work for at least a month. So add inabilty to earn wages (or however the legalese goes) to the list.

They also mentioned in passing that KI sued the manufacturer of the ride for 'stuctural defects' when it was built.

Which makes me wonder how much of that will be brought up in court. If this accident was due to a 'structural defect' and the park itself had previously sued the manfacturer for similar reasons, then will a lawyer try to connect the dots and prove there was a known issue from the start?

If I were PKI, I'd have sued the living DAYLIGHTS out of RCCA....LONG before this incident ever occurred...

I *could* see CBS being held liable for any KNOWN defects they might have failed to disclose, OR if it could be proven that they were *negligent* in the care and feeding of Sonny. I seriously doubt either of those scenarios would come to pass...the ride was a lemon from the very inception....

As I was saying while riding HC5 on Monday..."this is like Sonny, only without loops and with a few (rampy) airtime hills thrown in"...just plain OUCH!

^"Care and feeding"...I'll be laughing for a long time about that comment!

If I would have bought KI, the very first thing I would have done was tear down the POS and put a decent wood coaster in it's place. Maybe something along the line of the Voyage.

"Not Michael," yes mental anguish is real. I just don't know how a certain degree of angish can correlate to a certain amount of money to alleviate it. (Pay me $100,000 and my mental state will improve greatly?)

As far as loss of income, yes, to a certain degree it is real when definite numbers can be assigned to it. (I was out of work for x number of days and lost this much in wages and benefits.) That's fair to claim those losses.

What's happened in a few cases in PA in the past few years is you get this "projected loss of potential income" (I would have gotten a big promotion the week after the accident, and my salary would have gone up at least 20 percent a year for the next 30 years, not to mention all the bonuses and percs I would have been entitled to, if it weren't for this accident.) And people have been awarded those damages.

I find it interesting (bordering on bizarre) that the suit alleges that the accident was caused by improper maintenance of the ride, when the state inspectors have yet to determine the cause of the accident.

If the state inspectors find that the accident was due to something other than negligent maintenance, this suit is going to be up a well known creek, the name of which rhymes with "Brit".

It's also hard for me to believe that at this point anyone has an accurate idea of what the long-term effects of the accident may be on any individual.

No, but given the particular injuries, one can extrapolate from certain car crashes. The mechanism of injury is a little different, but the injuries themselves are similar.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Someone said you negotiate a settlement yourself and then file suit in case the talks fall through. Thats fine if it works out that way.

But in this day in age of micro managed companies (Even insurance companies) They are unwilling to offer a FAIR settlement unless a suit is filed.

This suit would be handled as any other non fault accident with the attorneys being paid only if they won, So why not file it and then settle out of court?

While Im sure they will be generous in this instance in settling the case.

If it was you and a Insurance adjuster offered you two grand for your broken chest bone, month off work and possible dental surgery would you take it?

More like 200 grand IMHO then I'd sign the complete release.

Chuck

How is this for liability. There were actually 2 trains which had individuals taken to the hospital. One of those injured on the 1st train immediately told the operators to STOP the 2nd train because of a serious problem. The 2nd train was allowed to continue, causing most of the 30 plus injuries. The 1st train had at least 2 or 3 injured, bleeding from noses and mouths with significant swelling. To me, being a reasonable person, I don't think it is fair or the right thing to do to ignore these complaints and injure another 25 plus people. Call it greedy or whatever you want, but put yourself in the shoes of those taken to the hospital and I don't think you would be very happy or tolerant of the parks actions/inactions. jmho.

Well folks, I have to tell you, I am an experienced engineer, and former aircraft maintenance specialist with a lot of experience at major theme parks behind the scenes.

Kings Island is in a scary state of disrepair from what I see as of June of this year.

On a recent trip to King Island I was pretty badly banged up on one of their coasters, one that I had ridden several times in the past, including before Cedar Corp. took the place over.

I had to be helped out of the car at the end of one coaster ride, only my second ride of the day, and I also got a bad attitude from the Cedar Fair staff, including one of the two paramedics.

The staff still sent the next train on it's merry way without stopping to check to see if there was anything serious. That alone is blatant carelessness that would never fly at the better run theme parks.

They also were very uncooperative about doing anything to make up for the fact that I would be unable to ride the rest of the day and basically paid for nothing except to get hurt.

I spent two hours with ice packs on my knees just to be able to limp back to my car and there were visible lateral cuts on and above my knees that were 4-6 inches across, caused by improperly maintained fiberglass at the front of the car. I also pointed out the roughness in several other cars and another train but they continued to operate the ride.

This is inexcusable when you consider that such a problem could have been fixed in five minutes by a maintenance person with some sandpaper.

Even before the incident I was concerned by the visible decline in the quality of the maintenance around the facility in just over a year.

There was a lot of rotting timber, lack of paint, rust and some missing nuts and bolts, etc. Quite a few of the water rides seemed to be running on substandard levels of water, causing a number of minor injuries which could be clearly seen on people getting off of various slides, mostly brush burns and such.

I also noted a lot more rides shut down for maintenance than ever before and in one ride, there was a person out front hawking that although about 2/3 of the functions of the ride were not working you could "still ride and enjoy hanging upside down for several seconds".

It has been over a month now and I have found very little cooperation from the management at the park. After several weeks I was offered complimentary tickets to come back.

Not much of an offer for being unable to walk normally for over a month, lost sleep, lost wages, and the possibility that I have permanent damage to my legs that may haunt me for years or longer.

I find their attitude one of denial and apathy and highly offensive.

If any of you think the lawsuit was for too high of an amount then I think you have little real knowledge of just how far reaching such long term injuries are and how badly it can affect a persons life for decades afterwards.

Considering that a person who makes 200K a year or more, as I have, could lose work for 10 or 20 years from an injury, plus suffer in pain for a long time, lose a lot of sleep during that time and suffer from that as well, which I have, and who may also have a huge stack of medical bills, 5 million goes away real fast by comparison.

When you could losing 1/3 or more of that to lawyers fees, then more for taxes, then the person suing may still actually be losing money in the end.

All due to carelessness on the part of the park. So don't just go assuming that there are those "mountains of paperwork" proving the ride is safe or that that paperwork is accurate.

At this point I would have to say that in my opinion you are taking a huge risk by going to Kings Island or any other facility owned by Cedar Fair Corp., and that opinion stands until I see things improve substantially.