 Can you pick the offender out of a lineup?
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After 12 hours of deliberation, a jury sided with the parents of former Miles City American Legion baseball pitcher Brandon Patch in a civil suit over the player’s death during a 2003 game in Helena. Aluminum bat maker Hillerich & Bradsby Co. failed to provide adequate warning as to the dangers of the bat used by a Helena Senators player during the game, at least eight of the 12 Lewis and Clark County jurors agreed Wednesday.
Hillerich & Bradsby Co. was ordered to pay $792,000 to Patch’s estate, which is represented by his mother, Debbie Patch, who filed the suit. Those funds were allotted to cover the lost earnings Patch would have made had he lived, and the pain he suffered from the injury before he died about four hours after being struck in the temple with a batted ball.
“This was for Brandon and the kids on the field,” Debbie Patch said after hearing the ruling. “We just hoped we could get the truth out for more people to see.” In the verdict read in District Judge Kathy Seeley’s courtroom, the jurors found the company, which makes Louisville Slugger bats, liable for failing to warn users of the danger of its aluminum bats and that this failure caused the accident that killed 18-year-old Patch. Duane Patch shook and sobbed as the verdict was read. He clutched his wife in an embrace as they both wiped tears, and he repeatedly pointed to the sky, as if to his son.
“That’s a grand slam,“ Duane Patch said as he hugged one of the family’s attorneys.
Are you kidding me? How about the maker of the ball? Who was it that said “Let’s kill all the lawyers…we’ll kill them tonight”.
I agree. This verdict is jacked up.
Do wooden bats have warning stickers?
What about the kid who hit the ball?
This is a case of juror sympathy with plaintiff.
It does not seem like a verdict with merit but of course I do not have the whole story.
That jury needs to be locked up before they hurt somebody!
Make all the children wear batting helmets on the field.
It’s time to play Accident Lotto! You or your loved ones could get hundreds of thousands of dollars when YOU screw up. Like hot coffee, you could be a winner! Don’t like to pay attention to what you’re doing, you could be a winner! Struck by lightning, you’re a winner!
Should just cover the medical bill.
What about the homicidal maniac that used the bat to kill?
And really.. would a warning label have stopped this from happening?
Stupid, stupid, stupid people.
This is why children, especially pitchers, need to carry guns – to protect from maniacs with bats.
From the article:
“Those funds were allotted to cover the lost earnings Patch would have made had he lived”
Appeal! What wages?
This economy doesn’t support the idea of earnings.
Thank heavens that the trial lawyers own the Democrats or we might actually have tort reform and stop the piracy that preys on American businesses (and individuals).
Put warning sticker on bat and then beat the lawyers.
The culture of entitlement in this country never fails to astound me. My sympathies go out to the parents of the dead man, but they really need to learn that life sucks sometimes, and the most reasonable thing to do is grin and bear it. The loss of a loved one is not license to sue anyone peripherally associated.
I’ll bet Alf wears a helmet.
I want one of those labels! Stick it on my butt and apparently I’ll be invulnerable!
So let me get this straight..
If I move to America, get married have a kid and (s)he gets killed through some freak accident I can sue and get close to a million bucks or more?
wow it really is the country of opportunity.
Too bad they didn’t sue someone for not making a face mitt instead. If they are young enough to reproduce I am sure that they could acquire a Nerf product for their next child.
#16
Only if the kid drops a hot bat in his/her lap.
If I were the bat manufacturer, I would pay the suit, shutdown my business, and make sure every single one of my now unemployed ex-employees had the address of that mother so they could send congratulation letters to her.
The lady thinks she’s hurting the manufacturer? Of course not. His insurance is going to pay it. And now, every other bat manufacturer’s premiums are going to increase. This is going to increase the cost of all their bats now.
If she was serious about it not being about the money, she should donate it to the local boy’s club or something.
“Who was it that said “Let’s kill all the lawyers…we’ll kill them tonight”.”
That was Shakespeare, and he was being ironic. (The character who says this says it because he’s plotting to overthrow the King and set up his own tyranny, but lawyers would oppose such a tyrany, thus the first part of his plan is to kill all of the lawyers.)
Also – Blame the jury on this one, not the lawyers. Although I have to say, this is some horrible reporting – I have no idea what this suit was about, what actually happened to lead up to the suit, or what the defenses/judicial posture of the case was except “a jury awarded three quarter million dollars” (paraphrasing, of course.)
I’m surprised the defense didn’t argue assumption of risk. People get hit with balls as a regular part of baseball. To get hit on the head is no great leap in logic.
Im thinking a line drive to the temple, launched off either a wood bat or aluminum bat would be no different as far as outcome. In little league 30+ years ago for me, we used aluminum bats, and after all this time, the danger of them is now coming to light? Interesting conclusion by the jury. The conclusion should have been , bad luck and sh*t happens.
The dad did this to deflect attention away from his son’s poor fielding abilities.
I once heard a story of someone shopping for a chainsaw. In English there were many warning labels regarding the dangers of coming in contact with a chainsaw. In Swedish, the country of origin of the chainsaw, there were no such warnings. When the salesman was asked about this, he replied that this is America and the warnings are necessary here. Nowhere else would anybody admit to, let alone sue for, touching the business end of a running chainsaw!
What ever happened to justice is blind? Since when has it become justice is empathetic?
Common sense has gone out the window.
PERSONAL responsibility is GONE.
Im going to stick my FINGER in an electrical socket and kill myself, and have my family SUE for my death.
There ISNT a warning on the outlet.
I will plug a wire into the wall, and Attach 1 wire to my TOE and JAM the other end into my tongue, JUST to see what happens.
Im going to turn my stove on HIGH, wait 5 minutes, and SLAM my hand onto the RED HOT COIL, just to see why it RED.
YARD DARTS, where are my 30 year old YARD DARTS…
Let me stand INFRONT of the dart board at the bar..
God forgive me for being an idiot, but I HOPE I learn to DUCK and COVER..
Here’s what I don’t get…
The bat was within the established specifications established by the ruling body of baseball in which the son was playing. The bat was used exactly as intended, and performed exactly as expected. The son was 18-years old, which means it is unlikely that he was new to the sport. It is also likely that at some point in time during the son’s involvement with baseball, the family signed a waiver, acknowledging that there are risks inherent to the sport of baseball.
I’m an umpire, and when this story first broke, I can tell you that it ROCKED the worlds of both baseball and softball. None of us can believe that a woman would sue the bat manufacturer (whose product MEETS the specifications of the league in which her son was playing), much less WIN the lawsuit.
This bat is nothing special. It’s a metal Louisville Slugger bat (Hillerich & Bradsby are just the parent owners). Nothing more, nothing less.
Absolutely ridiculous. I hope this gets overturned, and while I, along with other fellow blues, have strong sympathies for the family, I hope they don’t get a dime.
The jurors didn’t have to vote in favor of the plaintiff. I wonder how many people who comment would come up with a different decision if they sat in the jury box and heard all the facts of the trial?
This MUST be appealed. It would probably be cheaper to pay the money but, still, it MUST be appealed. It was 22 MILIseconds faster? And everything Mac Guy, above, said.
With this kind of liability issue, maybe schools everywhere will scale back their sports programs. No baseball for you! Hey, how about tether ball? I got hit in the head by the ball in the fourth grade and knocked off my feet. Could have killed me! In fact, I think I’ll see an attorney to consider suing my mother for not suing the ball manufacturer…
This is a rip off pure and simple. The jury needs kicked and ought to have to cough up the money themselves. We have kid at school who hasn’t been allowed to do jack for the last month because he was standing to near on his cousin’s back swing while playing golf. His parents didn’t sue the club makers and if they had I’d hope a sane jury would have thrown the case out.
deowll #29: I think you have a point. When a jury awards damages, it is the members of the jury that should have to pay. Along the same lines, when they send somebody to prison, they should have to pay for the prison time. What the heck, somebody pays, and jury duty is fairly evenly distributed. Why not?