Parents of girl who fell from Ferris wheel sue Morey's Piers

Can I pre-emptively counter the "frivolous lawsuit" crowd with the "we don't know enough to draw a conclusion" argument?

I second the motion, Andy.

And hereeeee we goooooo...

ApolloAndy said:
Can I pre-emptively counter the "frivolous lawsuit" crowd with the "we don't know enough to draw a conclusion" argument?

I'm pretty sure the state inspectors said the ride and her gondola were operating properly...I think we can draw a conclusion that this lawsuit is frivolous.

Frivolous, yet not unexpected.

If will again come down to whether of not a park is responsible for protecting you from yourself. I doubt it will ever go to trial.

At Michigan's Adventure the other day, a little girl said "I wanna get off" the yo-yo just as it got up to full speed. The ride operator stopped the ride, gave a spiel that he was going to let one rider off. The little girl got up, walked over the gate where her very muscular dad was waiting.

Then the ride started back up. Just as the ride got to height and full speed, the same thing happened again - another little girl said "I wanna get off." It was kinda funny, it wasn't a cry out of fright, the request was a rather nonchalant gesture of boredom. Same routine; ride stops, etc. and another little girl walks over to the same dad who greeted the other little girl at the exit. So, sisters...

I was so irritated (mind you, the Cedar Fair special seat belts around the chest were forcing me to lean back in a very uncomfortable position the entire time) I got off, too. And a couple other riders as well.

What's going on here? I just thought of this as the type of people that would sue if anything went wrong.

"I want off!" was normal for me when I worked at Camp Snoopy at Cedar point.

If I was suing the park for this, it would be because they let her ride without supervision. I would also go ahead and sue those who were to be chaperoning her.

I'm not say that this is or is not frivolous. The first ting that come up on Google when I searched the word is...

friv·o·lous/ˈfrivələs/Adjective
1. Not having any serious purpose or value: "rules to stop frivolous lawsuits".
2. (of a person) Carefree and not serious.

...therefore, I can't use that word in describing this lawsuit. The parent of the eleven-year-old are suing an amusement park because she died from riding an amusement ride. Sounds serious to me. Sounds like it has plenty of purpose and value to me.

^ I would agree, however anyone that files a lawsuit believes that their claims are serious and have plenty of purpose and value to them. It only tends to be frivolous to those who are unaffected or see the logic/common sense to the big idea.

(Just playing the devil's advocate here)

CoasterDemon: That chest strap is factory equipment on a Yo-Yo. For once you can't blame Cedar Fair for it, unless they've replaced the snap hook and D-ring with something else.

I can't say that I am surprised at this. I'm being lazy tonight and not reading the linked article....Abiah was at Morey's on a school trip. Are the school or any of the trip chaperones named in the suit for a lapse in attention as chaperones? Or is it just about Morey's?

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

RideMan said:
Or is it just about Morey's?

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

No, it's about another word that begins with the same two letters.

That's a pretty unnerving comment to me, Mike.

Are you saying that these parents may feel somewhat lucky because their daughter died and now they can sue to become stinkin' rich?

I say they deserve some kind of compensation for their loss, however I am totally with Rideman here that the chaperones are to blame as well.

I would not send my daughter with a group of people to an amusement park unless I knew that she was going to be taken care of. Falling out of a Ferris Wheel is not the only thing that could go wrong to an eleven-year-old girl who is alone in a crowded public place.

For the record, I am not "into" assigning blame to anybody. Quite frankly, I've wondered if an autopsy was performed, because I can think of a way in which a rider who is doing something that, while wrong, is not *inherently* unsafe could tumble out of the gondola if something else goes wrong.

I don't claim to know how or why this incident happened, and I don't know...nor do I really care, to be honest...who is responsible for it happening. My point is that the Wheel was in good working order, and was operating in a way that nobody could be expected to come out of it. It is highly unlikely that Morey's exercised anything less than the highest expected level of care in operating the ride. Thousands of people ride that Wheel without coming out. Abiah came out of the Wheel, and everybody wants to know why.

It is the business of the attorneys to try and figure out *who* might be responsible for the incident, and there are a whole lot more people who could be cited than just the Morey organization:

o The Wheel manufacturer, if there was a design fault with the Wheel
o The Morey organization, for operating a ride in an unsafe manner
o The insurance company, which indemnifies the Morey organization, but which also through a third-party inspector also certifies that the ride is "safe".
o The State of New Jersey, for allowing an unsafe ride to operate
o The school, for organizing a trip which put Abiah into harm's way
o The event organizers, for allowing Abiah to get into trouble when they were responsible for her safety

That's just off the top of my head. If the Joneses really want to establish responsibility for this tragedy, logically their claim should be extended to a lot of potentially responsible parties, should it not?

(n.b. I am not a lawyer..)

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

LostKause said:
That's a pretty unnerving comment to me, Mike.

Are you saying that these parents may feel somewhat lucky because their daughter died and now they can sue to become stinkin' rich?

No, I probaly phrased it poorly, but I'm saying that since...pending investigation...there doesn't seem too be anyone to blame for their daughter's death other than possibly the young lady herself, they're going the way they see as the only direction that they can get any kind of compensation for their loss.

Jeff said:
If will again come down to whether of not a park is responsible for protecting you from yourself.

Prisons can't even protect their inmates from themselves, and that's with armed guards, surveillance camers and acres of bars. Amusement parks don't even have a chance. If that becomes the new standard by which parks may operate, you might as well shut 'em all down now.

I do not see a problem with an eleven year old riding alone. There is no one to blame year. It is just unfortunate it is a type of ride that doesn't usually need much of a restraining system. Would really suck to have lap bars installed on a ferris wheel!