Once again, we see children losing a favorite activity because personal injury lawyers can’t resist the urge to sue a school.
This time, a lawyer in West Virginia sued the Cabell County school district after a child was injured while using a swing set at one of their schools. The district settled the lawsuit for $20,000 and is worried about more lawsuits, so they are removing all swing sets from all the schools there.
The safety manager for the school district was quoted in the Huntington Herald Dispatch saying, “In talking with our lawyers about this issue, they told us we might as well pull out our checkbooks if we’re going to continue using mulch around swing sets. These types of lawsuits are apparently occurring around the country.” See the full story here.
It wasn’t long ago when schools were on the leading edge of safety efforts if they put mulch around swing sets. Mulch is softer than the regular old ground human beings have been landing on for centuries when jumping off swings. But nowadays, injuries that have been part of life since the invention of the swing are simply fodder for trial lawyers trying to make a buck at everyone else’s expense. The plaintiff lawyers argue the landing area should have been softer, but it seems that no matter what schools do, the landing area is never soft enough.
Unfortunately, the real losers here are the children. They can’t vote and don’t write letters to the editor, so they’ll have to find something else to do rather than swing on a swing set at recess. We’ve seen this with community swimming pools, Little League baseball, parks and recreation areas run by local governments, and even the Girl Scouts are not immune from the lawsuit epidemic. Folks, this is all about quality of life – are we really better off with all these lawsuits? Of course not.
Fortunately, the rest of us can speak up and try to make sure that swing sets don’t vanish from the schools our own children attend. What can you do? How about ask your candidates for legislative and judicial seats how they feel about this issue. Do they support reasonable limits on lawsuits? Do they accept contributions from trial lawyer associations?
I’ve debated presidents of state trial lawyer associations many times, and never –not once — have they admitted there is a problem with frivolous lawsuits in America. I wonder where they’ll be when the swing sets are being removed from schools in Cabell County. Probably filing another lawsuit.
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This is so sad because the one’s losing out are the children. I’d rather see a kid fall off of a swing and scrape their leg while having fun, than watching a child grow up with no sort of childhood recreation and ending up becoming a gang member or a drug-addict.
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interesting, thanks