More suits filed following Son of Beast accident at Paramount's Kings Island

If the people were legit with their injuries I say more power to them. I hope they win (or, more better resolution: settle out of court).

I don't know the details of the structural failure, but somebody needs to take responsibility for it, whether it's the park or RCCA. That won't happen unless there's a suit.

I don't believe that these cases are legit are else they would have been filed within a few days of the accident. Also Kings Island does inspect thier rides.

Not legit? I think a park guest has a reasonable expectation of personal safety when participating in park attractions.

This is one of the few times that I think an amusement park related lawsuit is warranted. Riding a coaster and getting off with a broken sternum is serious business, and this was obviously not rider error.

Michael Darling is correct: The best resolution is an out of court settlement.

Jerry

I have not followed this story too close. I was on vacation when it happened...and I never caught up. However...this sentence bothers me...

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park failed to maintain the ride in a safe condition and failed to inspect the ride and discover any and all safety issues and defects.

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This is lawyer speak. They have set up an impossible standard for the argument and accepted it as reasonable. It is not reasonable for any piece of machinery owned by any company or individual to have zero safety isues. No park or individual owner of any piece of equipment could EVER anticipate all possible accident scenerios. There is a percentage (small) failure risk with everything.

Again...this has nothing to do with this particular case...as it sounds like somebody screwed up big time for such a massive failure. My beef is with their lawyers moving the standard to "impossible" and apparently doing so with a straight face.

KI/CF (?) knows this should NOT have happened. They will do the right thing and compensate accordingly. I'm not certain a publicity seeking lawyer quoting impossible scenerios helps his clients' case. If anything, it may hurt by tainting credibility. They already have the winning hand...there is no need to bluff more. At this point it seems to be for spite only.

^ I think part of the "leap in logic" is probably bluster in thinking they can win *excessive amounts* of money in the case. Certainly, and without a doubt, medical expenses and lost wages WILL be recovered. King's island (regardless of ownnership) DOES owe that much no question. How much will/should be awarded BEYOND those obvious "costs", that's where the rhetoric becomes a little...reaching.... ;)

Keep in mind that these are the kinds of reasons that parks carry insurance. The victims of this incident will be compensated. Personally, I think that if they were traumatized (which they quite likely were, but I wasn't on that train so I don't know exactly what happened) there should be compensation for that, also.

There are some important engineering and safety issues to remember in this case before pointing blame. The element that failed was a wood member in compression. This compression member was not slowly loaded, but rapidly loaded every time the train went by, thousands of times. When higher quality wood undergoes compression, especially with quick loading times, it does not slowly show signs of fatigue. It fails very quickly, or in engineer-speak, a "brittle" failure.

You can't easily check for this kind of stuff, which is why KI is stating that their inspecitons wouldn't have found this failure mode. It was a poor specimen of wood in an unfortunate location.

I think it is fair to ask KI to cover the medical expenses, but I believe to call them negligent and expect further compensation is unreasonable.

Wood is not like steel where it is manufactured and has a certain level of quality control. Wood is visually graded, which is a very subjective process. Sometimes they're way off, like in this case. Is this Kings Island's fault? Sounds like the lawyers will be deciding that one!

Medical expenses should be covered, as lost wages.

It is pain and suffering where the lawyers and plantiffs get greedy usually and out of control. Unless you are permantently hurt from something that is outright negligent, most of it is not warrented and only skyrockets the cost of insurance for EVERYONE that has any kind of insurance.

Can you really say they were not negligent? The ride did fall apart. Wood or steel thats not supposed to happen.

We don't have the ability to insepect every ride we get on, so we have to rely on the parks to do it. If the ride falls apart the park is at fault. Thats my opinion.

I also agree that medical bills and lost wages should be paid, if the people are suing for more they are just trying to make a bundle off a unfortunate incident with the help of ambulance chasing lawyers!!

neg·li·gence Audio pronunciation of "negligence" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (ngl-jns)
n.

1. The state or quality of being negligent.
2. A negligent act or a failure to act.
3. Law. Failure to exercise the degree of care considered reasonable under the circumstances, resulting in an unintended injury to another party.

As Cincydj said in his post above, in order to be found "negligent" it would have to be proven the park did not do a proper job in maintaining and inspecting the ride.

Considering the park can prove they inspected the ride that very morning, and if they can prove the failure was a quick failure that could not have been anticipated, then the park would not be "negligent" as described by law.

Medical expenses and lost wages should and likely will be covered by the park, simply because I don't believe CF will be one to blow off the people who were hurt. But raking CF for whatever they can based upon "negligence" could be unwarranted.

I think the idea of "lost wages" should be clarified too. If a person has a physical injury that actually keeps them from doing, getting to, and being paid for their job for a reasonable amount of time, it's a valid claim. What's a reasonable time period for the woman with the broken sternum and fractured ribs? What about the other people with lesser unspecified injuries?

An unscrupulous person could potentially claim short or long term disability and ask for months of lost wages. Last fall, I had carpal tunnel surgery on my left hand. During my pre-op appointment, I asked the surgeon how long it would be until I could return to work. He answered "how long do you want to be off?" He would have given me several weeks if I had asked for them plus I could have claimed disability.

I also believe an out of court settlement would be the best for all parties involved.
Based on the info, the claims are legit and I'm sure those involved will be compensated.

What's a reasonable time period for a broken sternum? I have no clue. Did it affect her marriage, her love life? Did it prevent her from running the kids to soccer practice? (i think this is was CF would not want to go into...)

The ride has always been a rough one. This isn't even the first time it's been shut down due to a rough ride. And what about safety issues. PKI follows the same guidelines as Cedar Point. Sue PKI for pour inspection? HA! Might as well sue Cedar Point while you are at it.

Great logic there, Nick.