Unreal - Judge rules that 4 year old can be sued

[Glitter Brunello Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Glitter Brunello]

I really cannot believe this.


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/30/ny...city.html?_r=1

[StressCadet Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close StressCadet]

I can't believe some of the bloggers comments after the stories. WOW.

[susieq Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close susieq]

I agree ~ this whole thing is unreal!!! What were they thinking??

[dougp26364 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close dougp26364]

Must be a slow news day. Why is this even news?

[Keitht Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Keitht]

Must be a slow news day. Why is this even news?

Pardon?? Why is it news that a 4 year old child is being sued?? Is it normal even in the USA for a child of that age to be taken to court?? To me it's far more newsworthy than any story about a corrupt/money grabbing/self serving (delete as applicable) politician as all politicians these days seem to fall into one or more of these categories.

[dougp26364 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close dougp26364]

Pardon?? Why is it news that a 4 year old child is being sued?? Is it normal even in the USA for a child of that age to be taken to court?? To me it's far more newsworthy than any story about a corrupt/money grabbing/self serving (delete as applicable) politician as all politicians these days seem to fall into one or more of these categories.

The court system is different here (not better, just different). It very well could be a situation where the plantiff desires to make the parents responsible for their childs actions but, the law does not allow for the parents to be named directly. This could be the indirect way to assign liability to the parents, who might be held responsible for their childs actions up until they reach the age of majority.........or maybe not.

Was this a case of the child just being a child? Was this a case of an unsupervised child that routinely causes problems in the neighborhood, this time resulting in a death? Is this a case of an elderly woman harrasing children and getting herself knocked over in the process? We don't know.

All that seems to be important is that a 4 year old is getting sued. We don't know why they felt the need to name the child as a defendent but, my bet is there is some sort of odd ball reason that would allow the parents to escape liablity in the jurisdiction they live in if the child was not named. The defendants attorny requested dismissal based on the age of the child and was denied. IMHO, no big deal. This may simply be positioning and, being a slow news day, made for a sensationalized headline.

[tonyg Goomba & Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close tonyg]

Do you think they are going for all his assets- like maybe the bike ?

[Glitter Brunello Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Glitter Brunello]

Do you think they are going for all his assets- like maybe the bike ?

[jlwquilter Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close jlwquilter]

If not the bike, then maybe the little girl's pacifier? Or binkie? Stuffed rabbit? My god, she could be wiped out by this!

I did read the article a few days ago. Apparently there is historical precedent (about 90 years of it) that unilaterally states that a child UNDER the age of 4 can't be sued. But the girl in this case is 4 3/4 and the court didn't want to move that historical age line so allowed the girl to be named in a suit. That's all that's happened so far. The parents are indeed also named in the case, if I remember correctly.

The little girl and a friend were "racing" their bikes (complete with training wheels) on a NYC sidewalk. The mothers were "supervising". Somehow, it doesn't say how, the girl ran into the elderly woman causing her to fall and break a few things (hip, etc.). Woman died 3 months later, after having surgery. It wasn't clear to me in the article that she died specifically of complications from surgery or stress (of any nature) due to the injury or surgery. My guess is that part of the case will rest on that. Maybe she just died because she was old and it was her time kind of thing.

Anyway, the whole thing so far is that the court refused to move the age line.

[dougp26364 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close dougp26364]

Do you think they are going for all his assets- like maybe the bike ?

I think they're going after the parents assets and, through some weird quirk in local law, have to file suit against the kid instead of going directly after the parents.

I doubt the intent is to take everything the child has but to make the parents responsible for their childs actions/behaviors. Local law can be a strange thing. I have no real idea why anyone would want to take a 4 year old to court unless it was necessary to get to the parents, who may/may not be legaly responsible for their childs actions and debts until they reach the age of majority.

[garyd210 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close garyd210]

No doubt there was an attorney involved that encouraged the family of the dead woman to sue. We are normally a very over insured country and the attorney probably saw dollar signs. Any judge in his right mind is not going to hold a 4-year old eventually responsible, so everyone can now calm down now. There's enough hysteria in our country right now with all the pre-election tv commercials. There is no doubt more to the story and the legal rationale behind some of the actions the lawyers take. In my humble opinion.