What do you call a museum that offers youngsters a five-story jungle gym, slides made from assembly line rollers, and a whale sculpture they can walk through?
Kids call it awesome!
Personal injury lawyers call it too dangerous. And they’ve filed so many lawsuits against the museum that the price of liability insurance has skyrocketed from $36,000 in 1997 to about $600,000 now. This is a story you need to hear.
The Wall Street Journal published an excellent article this week about the City Museum in St. Louis. It’s so popular that it draws 700,000 visitors each year — almost twice the population of the city and way above the attendance at more traditional museums. Obviously, kids love the place.
But, alas, in a museum that encourages boys and girls to leave the computer behind and climb, jump, and run to their heart’s content, there have been some spills. Lawyers who have sued owner Bob Cassilly over some of the injuries say that the museum doesn’t have enough warnings posted.
What’s next, warning labels on trees urging kids not to climb on them?
Rather than give in to the lawyers’ demands, however, Cassilly is fighting back. And his response is priceless.
He’s posted a sign near the entrance to the museum that lists the names and phone numbers of law firms that have sued the museum and which blames them for a 9% surcharge recently added to the cost of a ticket. I want to shake this man’s hand.
You can read more about how the museum is standing up to the plaintiffs’ bar in a statement the museum has put on its website.
At a time when we’re seeing an alarming rise in obesity in America because so many kids don’t get out and exercise, it’s refreshing to see a man who is motivating kids to play and challenge themselves physically. We need to be encouraging entrepreneurs to open more museums like this, not placing barriers in their way.
The banner on the museum’s web site proudly announces that this is a place “Where the Imagination Runs Wild.” Unfortunately, it has to operate in a nation where personal injury lawyers run wild, too.
