What scum.

Late on her car note?

Guess what, chickie, if you sit near a baseball game (yes, bullpen warm ups are part of the game) you are taking the risk of thrown bats and balls onto yourself. Grow up.

"Assumption of risk." If you go see a baseball game (at any level), you can be hit by a ball (foul, fair, or thrown). A Little League player won't have the same level of control as a pro.....so you don't sit 5 feet from the freakin' fence.

The two-year part stems from the state's statute of limitations - and she's not going to get 500K - she (and her attorney) are pushing to get the maximum 'go away' money they can get from the homeowners' policy. There's a value that the ins co will set on the case, and if they can settle for that, they'll pay it just to get her to go be fat somewhere else.

Not right....but that's how it is.

The My Little Pony Killer: What scum.

Yeah, that kid is such a dick.

If every woman that got hit in the face with balls sued.............

This is a prime example why lawyers have a bad reputation. I really hope the judge takes one look at this lawsuit and pisses on it while laughing them out of the courtroom.

Here's the reason crap like this happens. Because of the way the insurance companies work, she is FORCED to sue. She doesn't have enough money to cover her medical bills. Insurance won't cover all of it. What else is she going to do? Sue everybody that was involved. If we had good comprehensive national health coverage and some tort reform, this kind of garbage would not happen. But because we are all basically slaves to our corporate masters, you will see this again and again.

Owen Meaney?

If you're at a sporting event, it's up to you to pay attention. The balls don't always stay in fair territory...sounds like a dumb biatch.

Double Time: Owen Meaney?

HE WISHES.

cig-mkr: If every woman that got hit in the face with balls sued.............

Where did she get hit? The chin?

"The attorney, Riaz A. Mian, tells the Press the damages his client is seeking is the maximum that the family's home insurance covers."

purely coincidental, though.

CatfoodSpork: Here's the reason crap like this happens. Because of the way the insurance companies work, she is FORCED to sue. She doesn't have enough money to cover her medical bills. Insurance won't cover all of it. What else is she going to do? Sue everybody that was involved. If we had good comprehensive national health coverage and some tort reform, this kind of garbage would not happen. But because we are all basically slaves to our corporate masters, you will see this again and again.

FORCED absolutely she is FORCED to sue, all because she didn't have enough common sense to know that sporting events, especially with kids who are essentially learning. can be dangerous and she should have been paying better attention or sitting further away.

I'm in favor of national health coverage, but what this lady needs is common sense.

CatfoodSpork: Because of the way the insurance companies work, she is FORCED to sue. She doesn't have enough money to cover her medical bills. Insurance won't cover all of it. What else is she going to do? Sue everybody that was involved. If we had good comprehensive national health coverage and some tort reform, this kind of garbage would not happen. But because we are all basically slaves to our corporate masters, you will see this again and again.

Do not feed the trolls.
Do not feed the trolls.
Do not feed the trolls.

/do not feed the trolls.

boyvoyeur: cig-mkr: If every woman that got hit in the face with balls sued.............

Where did she get hit? The chin?

Not sure, but he did hit that

RhinoCat: what this lady needs is common sense.

No, she needs integrity. Common sense tells her to sue for the "go-away" money.

walkerhound: "The attorney, Riaz A. Mian, tells the Press the damages his client is seeking is the maximum that the family's home insurance covers."

purely coincidental, though.

No, you see, he's proving what a mensch he is for not costing them real money. Just insurance money. You know, the free kind that doesn't affect anyone adversely to give away...

The eleven year old is not liable, not in any way shape or form However, he did overthrow the ball and hit a woman in the face. She required reconstructive surgery and still suffers from debilitating headaches. She will probably have serious issues later in life including but not limited to: Parkinson's, aneurysms, and early onset dementia. You may think I'm exaggerating, but my office sees hundreds of patients annually who have suffered seemingly mild brain trauma only to have their condition devolve into a serious, life threatening emergency.

I don't blame the kid for throwing the ball. And I don't blame the woman for sitting in the stands. These "assumption of risk" arguments are ridiculous and unfounded. I place complete and total blame on the Little League, whose silence highlights their culpability.

Little League has become some sort of suburban catch all. Any child can join a team and most likely, no matter how terrible they are, they will receive some amount of "pity time" on the field. There's no try-outs or any physical vetting process to weed out the children who are unable to even so much as throw a ball thirty-five feet with any semblance of control. Children should have to try out for these teams, demonstrate a moderate level of ability, and only then have the opportunity to participate. Too bad we've socialized our sports competition to the point that any kid is not only permitted but encouraged to participate.

The other day I took my son Beau to the baseball fields for practice. He's a .750 hitter, throws 75 MPH, runs a 4.8, and he's only nine years old. Unfortunately, the children that he's forced to play with drag him down to their pathetic level. He's not allowed to pitch because the parents are afraid that he might brush back their little angel who deserves to get hit every time he steps up to the plate. I encourage and teach Beau to hit line drives at these little princesses just so I can hear their parents huff and puff about player safety. It wouldn't be a dangerous game if your kid didn't spend the entire 9 innings with his fingers up his ass!

I hope this woman sues the bejesus out of the League and this gets taken all the way up the chain of command to the Supreme Court. The sooner we can restrict access to these programs, the better off and more competitive we will be. Do you think the Japs let little one legged Hiroshi hop around in the infield? Hell no. He's at home in the basement pressing their uniforms. Right where he belongs.

So, injury happens, problems develop and insurance company says "nope, screw you no cash". So the only mechanism to pry money out of the damn insurance company is a lawsuit.

Sucks, but there it is. I've seen situations where one guy had to sue his friend to get medical coverage. Injury happened on a front stoop, insurance company said "go away". Kind of wierd when the person being sued is saying "yup should pay up". Insurance companies will sometimes not pay on a policy until a judge says they have to.

You realise this is the situation where the amount of the lawsuit just so happens to be the maximum liability on the policy, and there were numerous negotiation attempts. There should be a $10M slap to the back of the head of the Insurance company for not settling a valid claim.

spentmiles: words.


That's some quality trolling.

CatfoodSpork: Here's the reason crap like this happens. Because of the way the insurance companies work, she is FORCED to sue. She doesn't have enough money to cover her medical bills. Insurance won't cover all of it. What else is she going to do? Sue everybody that was involved. If we had good comprehensive national health coverage and some tort reform, this kind of garbage would not happen. But because we are all basically slaves to our corporate masters, you will see this again and again.

Are you kidding me? Insurance companies settle ALL THE TIME. They settle because it's cheaper than going to court. They also settle frivolous lawsuits instead of fighting them. This encourages lawyers to sue for anything and everything. You've got it entirely backwards. The insurance company, in this case, must feel there is reason not to settle. And, please link me to where it states her medical coverage and costs. Because, I don't see any numbers which you do seem to know.

Babwa Wawa: There's a little bit of CatfoodSpork here too. -Absolutely right - there's no detail in TFA or the sourcce article as to whether the plaintiff has insurance, and if it covers the bills.


FTA: "maximum that the family's home insurance covers". Its standard in these cases to go after the policy limit. This is the next step after failed negotiations with insurance companies before the statute of limitations expires. The lady has to file suit against the kid and parents (parents because of the kids age) in order to get at the insurance company. They can't just sue the insurance company directly, they have to sue the kid in which case the insurance should kick in defend the suit. This is actually a pretty routine case, just because it involves the holy "little league" and a kid does anyone get upset. The parties will still be negotiating resolution, however now the plaintiff's claims are preserved from sol.

Sorry, the kid caused the injuries and whether negligent or intentional, the kid has or his parents has to pay for the harm he caused.

Makes perfect sense. Sometimes it's better to wait to bring suit, to see the complete extent of your damages and potential long-term care costs. The kid is being sued...but really his guardians who have insurance exactly for this type of accident are being sued (same as if the Dad had hit the lady in the parking lot with his car).

The assumption of risk is taken by the people throwing and hitting projectiles at other people. You break it, you buy it.

Woman hanging around a ball park... she was obviously sleeping with that kid, and when he called it off because he started sleeping with the babysitter, she got jealous and wanted revenge.

spentmiles: The eleven year old is not liable, not in any way shape or form However, he did overthrow the ball and hit a woman in the face. She required reconstructive surgery and still suffers from debilitating headaches. She will probably have serious issues later in life including but not limited to: Parkinson's, aneurysms, and early onset dementia. You may think I'm exaggerating, but my office sees hundreds of patients annually who have suffered seemingly mild brain trauma only to have their condition devolve into a serious, life threatening emergency.

I don't blame the kid for throwing the ball. And I don't blame the woman for sitting in the stands. These "assumption of risk" arguments are ridiculous and unfounded. I place complete and total blame on the Little League, whose silence highlights their culpability.

Little League has become some sort of suburban catch all. Any child can join a team and most likely, no matter how terrible they are, they will receive some amount of "pity time" on the field. There's no try-outs or any physical vetting process to weed out the children who are unable to even so much as throw a ball thirty-five feet with any semblance of control. Children should have to try out for these teams, demonstrate a moderate level of ability, and only then have the opportunity to participate. Too bad we've socialized our sports competition to the point that any kid is not only permitted but encouraged to participate.

The other day I took my son Beau to the baseball fields for practice. He's a .750 hitter, throws 75 MPH, runs a 4.8, and he's only nine years old. Unfortunately, the children that he's forced to play with drag him down to their pathetic level. He's not allowed to pitch because the parents are afraid that he might brush back their little angel who deserves to get hit every time he steps up to the plate. I encourage and teach Beau to hit line drives at these little princesses just so I can hear their parents huff and puff about ...

8.75/10

MadHatter500: So, injury happens, problems develop and insurance company says "nope, screw you no cash". So the only mechanism to pry money out of the damn insurance company is a lawsuit.

Sucks, but there it is. I've seen situations where one guy had to sue his friend to get medical coverage. Injury happened on a front stoop, insurance company said "go away". Kind of wierd when the person being sued is saying "yup should pay up". Insurance companies will sometimes not pay on a policy until a judge says they have to.

You realise this is the situation where the amount of the lawsuit just so happens to be the maximum liability on the policy, and there were numerous negotiation attempts. There should be a $10M slap to the back of the head of the Insurance company for not settling a valid claim.

Personally, I like the part where the lawsuit alleges the kid intentionally hit her with the ball. It absolves her of any assumption of risk whatsoever. I'm not saying the woman and the lawyer are definitely jizzmoppers here, but if their only hope of getting the insurance company to pay up is to fabricate facts, I'm guessing they'd be on shaky ground if this case actually goes to court. They'll probably settle, and the lawyer will get his cut. I wonder, though, how this is going to affect the kid's family's ability get homeowner insurance and the premiums they'll have to pay?

spentmiles: The other day I took my son Beau to the baseball fields for practice. He's a .750 hitter, throws 75 MPH, runs a 4.8, and he's only nine years old. Unfortunately, the children that he's forced to play with drag him down to their pathetic level. He's not allowed to pitch because the parents are afraid that he might brush back their little angel who deserves to get hit every time he steps up to the plate. I encourage and teach Beau to hit line drives at these little princesses just so I can hear their parents huff and puff about player safety. It wouldn't be a dangerous game if your kid didn't spend the entire 9 innings with his fingers up his ass!

Was a player, coach, umpire, and board of director member for my local little league. Fact is, most of the kids don't give a crap about baseball. They like being with their friends, but could care less about the game. It becomes a social club for the parents, a way for them to relive their youth through their kids. And what happened, every year, was we had an entire league of kids who sucked with maybe 3 or 4 good ones. You basically had a huge socialistic community project where everyone had to stand there and watch these few kids "do good" against kids that didn't even care then act all indignant and arrogant about it. I found it kind of sad the last few years I was involved with the league. The parents didn't understand why we would make and implement rules that favored the 100 other kids vs. the 3 or 4. They didn't understand that the league didn't exist just for their son to have a platform to shine.

$500 says she's fat.

stonicus: Was a player, coach, umpire, and board of director member for my local little league. Fact is, most of the kids don't give a crap about baseball. They like being with their friends, but could care less about the game. It becomes a social club for the parents, a way for them to relive their youth through their kids. And what happened, every year, was we had an entire league of kids who sucked with maybe 3 or 4 good ones. You basically had a huge socialistic community project where everyone had to stand there and watch these few kids "do good" against kids that didn't even care then act all indignant and arrogant about it. I found it kind of sad the last few years I was involved with the league. The parents didn't understand why we would make and implement rules that favored the 100 other kids vs. the 3 or 4. They didn't understand that the league didn't exist just for their son to have a platform to shine.

I've played professional baseball, coached minor league teams, umpired professional games, and served as the interim MLB president after Marty Shotts passed away unexpectedly. For you to suggest that competitive sports should be some sort of cattle field, milling about, social promenade is akin to you spitting right in my face. Not just in my face, but in my mouth, right down my throat. I'm not going to stand for it. I want your name and e-mail address. I'm not threatening you - I'm guaranteeing that I'm going to contact your local commissioner and have you barred from serving competitive sports in any capacity. You are the reason those 100 other kids think they can come out and play ball with my boy Beau. You've failed them by tricking them into thinking that they could compete, when you yourself admit that don't have the guts for it.

So go grab a hotdog at Kroger and enjoy sitting in the parking lot because security isn't going to let you within 500 feet of a diamond. Asshole.

Babwa Wawa: stonicus: Was a player, coach, umpire, and board of director member for my local little league

If so, you'd know spentmiles is full of shiat and trolling - 9 year old's don't throw 75 MPH fastballs.

Of course I know... but even trolls sometimes spew out an opinion/thought held by many or get lucky and mention a topic worth commenting on.

spentmiles: stonicus: Was a player, coach, umpire, and board of director member for my local little league. Fact is, most of the kids don't give a crap about baseball. They like being with their friends, but could care less about the game. It becomes a social club for the parents, a way for them to relive their youth through their kids. And what happened, every year, was we had an entire league of kids who sucked with maybe 3 or 4 good ones. You basically had a huge socialistic community project where everyone had to stand there and watch these few kids "do good" against kids that didn't even care then act all indignant and arrogant about it. I found it kind of sad the last few years I was involved with the league. The parents didn't understand why we would make and implement rules that favored the 100 other kids vs. the 3 or 4. They didn't understand that the league didn't exist just for their son to have a platform to shine.

I've played professional baseball, coached minor league teams, umpired professional games, and served as the interim MLB president after Marty Shotts passed away unexpectedly. For you to suggest that competitive sports should be some sort of cattle field, milling about, social promenade is akin to you spitting right in my face. Not just in my face, but in my mouth, right down my throat. I'm not going to stand for it. I want your name and e-mail address. I'm not threatening you - I'm guaranteeing that I'm going to contact your local commissioner and have you barred from serving competitive sports in any capacity. You are the reason those 100 other kids think they can come out and play ball with my boy Beau. You've failed them by tricking them into thinking that they could compete, when you yourself admit that don't have the guts for it.

So go grab a hotdog at Kroger and enjoy sitting in the parking lot because security isn't going to let you within 500 feet of a diamond. Asshole.

We don't have Krogers here. Will Winn Dixie dogs be sufficient?

OK, here's what actually happened. I know this not because I have personal knowledge of the facts, but because the same damn thing happens in so many personal injury cases.

Step 1) Person is injured, is forced to seek medical treatment, and incurs medical bills
Step 2) Person can't pay and is forced to consult a personal injury attorney
Step 3) Personal injury attorney sends settlement demand to defendant's insurance company*
Step 4) Despite reasonable legal arguments for liability and damages, insurance company makes lowball offer
Step 5) Several months or years of fruitless negotiations between personal injury attorney and insurance company take place
Step 6) Statute of limitations, often two years for a case like this one, approaches
Step 7) Attorney files suit because of SoL, claims policy limits in damages because there's no downside to starting high when your opponent is unreasonable
Step 8) To get claim moved from insurance company to its insurance defense attorneys, suit must be served on defendants

*: As here, due to policy language home owner's insurance often functions as a catch all.

I work at a small personal injury firm, and we generally have to litigate a fair number of our cases because of the exact situation. It's not the plaintiffs' faults for being injured and being unable to pay, its not the defendants' faults for doing something that's arguably negligent (they bought insurance to protect themselves). The real at fault parties are the insurance companies that refuse to pay fair value for valid claims until suit is filed.

I would argue that the most important line from the whole thing (if you're trying to blame the lawyers, or the plaintiff):

"The suit claims Matthew intentionally struck her"

That reeks of all kinds of ickiness to me.

Russ1642: Intentianally hit her?

It's a dumb thing to claim, really. Expected or intended bodily injury is excluded in the liability section homeowner's policies. So, if she is seeking homeowner's policy limits, the insurance company may simply reserve its rights under the policy citing this exclusion, not defend the insured and not afford any coverage based on that assertion. She may get farked out of getting anything and should have taken a settlement.

Also, IANAL, but what duty of care is owed to the adult by a kid that is not responsible for placing a picnic table 5 feet from the bullpen? And, why isn't the family bringing in the facility as a third party defendant rather than just posturing in the paper about its lack of response?

solyhhit: $500 says she's fat.

duh.

Anthony Pagano, the attorney for Matthew's family, called the litigation "disgusting."

"Because a kid was throwing a baseball in a bullpen session, he is forced to retain counsel," said Pagano to Asbury Park.

Yeah! It's disgusting that I'm making these people pay me instead of representing them for free!

/wait, what?

Bruce Campbell: Russ1642: Intentianally hit her?

It's a dumb thing to claim, really. Expected or intended bodily injury is excluded in the liability section homeowner's policies. So, if she is seeking homeowner's policy limits, the insurance company may simply reserve its rights under the policy citing this exclusion, not defend the insured and not afford any coverage based on that assertion. She may get farked out of getting anything and should have taken a settlement.

Also, IANAL, but what duty of care is owed to the adult by a kid that is not responsible for placing a picnic table 5 feet from the bullpen? And, why isn't the family bringing in the facility as a third party defendant rather than just posturing in the paper about its lack of response?

I'm surprised they haven't sued the town, who I imagine is the legal owner of the ballpark.