A Palm Beach County jury recently awarded $3.6 million to a couple whose daughter was killed while driving a friend’s ATV. The jury ruled that the wrongful death of the 13-year-old girl was due to the ATV owners’ failure to heed the warning stickers on the ATV, which stated that the ATV should not be driven by anyone under the age of 16. The hope of the parents is that this suit, like other personal injury lawsuits, will protect other children in the future, but it is unlikely. Instead, this case is a perfect example of lawsuits that do little but generate business for lawyers and create unnecessary clutter in our courts.
The parents who allowed the girl who was killed to ride the ATV had also already allowed their son, also 13, to ride the vehicle, even though they knew the risk of traumatic brain injury and death existed. If they were willing to risk their son, it is unlikely that the threat of any amount of punitive damage would have stopped them from allowing the girl to ride the vehicle. Why? Because people assume that the accident will not happen to them, and they will continue to make that assumption no matter how many lawsuits we file. And most of the time they are right. For one family with one ATV the risks of an injury are low. And this ruling is also inappropriate because the family being sued is now bankrupt for no good cause.
So when is a personal injury lawsuit with multi-million dollar damages appropriate? It is appropriate only when the defendant knowingly engaged in behavior that had a significant likelihood of causing injury, when they did so for profit, and when they are likely to commit such actions again unless given sufficient fiduciary damage to force them to correct their behavior.
If you have been injured by a company who has balanced the risk of your injury against their profit, contact the Law Firm of Barry G. Doyle, an experienced personal injury lawyer practicing in the Chicago area.
