Goddamn it!  You can't do a fucking thing anymore without exposing yourself to lawsuits.

I am SO sick and tired of this shit!

[pissed]

[url]http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/173/metro/Jury_to_decide_liability_in_accident+.shtml[/url]

Jury to decide liability in accident

Teen left brain dead after being hit by car

By Kathleen Burge, Globe Staff, 6/22/2003

PRINGFIELD -- It was the most mundane of gestures, a wave of the hand allegedly from a driver who stopped his van for two teenage girls trying to cross the street. He motioned, one witness later said, for them to pass before his vehicle.

The results were catastrophic. As Amy Woods, 14, moved beyond the van and into the next lane, another car slammed into her body. She was tossed into the air with such force that a shoe flew off one foot.

Was the accident that left Amy profoundly brain-damaged a terrible twist of fate, a lifetime of pain wrought in one awful moment? Or did the van driver cause the crash by waving Amy to her doom?

Later this year, a jury will decide whether the driver gestured -- he maintains that he did not -- and if so, whether he can be held partly responsible for Amy's injuries. The state Appeals Court considered the issue for the first time last year, overturning the decision of a lower court judge who threw out the case.

The case is unusual because Amy's parents, Kay and Gary Woods, sued not only the driver who hit their daughter -- that case has been settled -- but the Nynex van driver, Roger O'Neil, who did not touch her.

''Just think of the number of times you've done that yourself,'' said David White-Lief, a personal injury lawyer in Boston. ''You want to be helpful. The trouble is, you have to understand that the person is relying on that, and maybe more than you intend.''

But others fear the decision creates an legal expansion of personal responsibility, an unfortunate kernel of encouragement to an overly litigious society. Lawyers for the van driver argue that Woods was responsible for her own fate. She didn't look, they told the Appeals Court, as she ran in front of the car that hit her.

Drivers who wave pedestrians across the street act out of courtesy and do not negate pedestrians' responsibility for their own safety, Pamela A. Smith, a lawyer for O'Neil and his employer, Nynex, argued to the Appeals Court.

Amy, now 21, spent more than a year in the hospital after the accident, and now lives at the Crotched Mountain Rehabilitation Center in New Hampshire. She cannot feed herself, walk, or communicate.

The accident took place on a Tuesday afternoon, Feb. 6, 1996. After school, Amy had gone to visit a friend, Colleen Fettes, a classmate she'd known since elementary school. Then they headed to the house of another friend. They easily crossed the first two lanes of Page Boulevard, a four-lane road, and waited on the double yellow lines.

It was about 4 p.m. and O'Neil was just finishing his work day as a repairman for Nynex, driving his company van to the garage. When he saw the two teenagers in the middle of the street, he slowed to a stop.

He later said he never gestured to them, only stopped because he feared they might dart in front of him. Nynex company policy prohibited workers from motioning pedestrians to cross in front of company vehicles.

Amy went first, and as she stepped into the second lane, O'Neil said he saw a white blur out of the corner of his eye. ''I think I closed my eyes because I knew what was about to happen,'' he said in a deposition. She froze, he said, when she saw the car coming at her.

Jeffrey Felix, a part-time postal clerk, was driving his wife to a bookstore to pick up a map she'd ordered. He never saw the girls, he said, until the moment his white station wagon struck Amy. ''It looked like she jumped on my hood,'' he said in a deposition.

The case will not be easy for the Woods to win. William Spano, whose car was behind O'Neil's van before Amy was hit, is the only witness who said he saw the van driver gesture for the girls to cross.

In 1999, Superior Court Judge C. Brian McDonald threw out the Woods' lawsuit against O'Neil and Nynex (now Verizon Communications), ruling that there wasn't enough evidence that Amy saw a signal, and even if she did, that she relied on it.

But the Appeals Court overturned that decision, saying a jury should decide. ''We cannot rule as a matter of law that his signal to the girls could only be interpreted as allowing them to pass in front of his van or that his duty to the girls extended no further than the front of his van,'' Justice Scott J. Kafker wrote for the court.

No comment.

that's sad that she got hit, but I never go by the wave of a driver. that might be safe to get in front of their vehicle but I still slowly peer out around their vehicle before going into the next lane whether on foot or in a car

We'll miss ya, just make sure the postal service delivers mail to your selected location once a year or so.

POS attorneys - these fuckers have to invent shit like this so they have someone to sue- can't we use a little 'lawyer control' no one needs that many attorneys. No new attorneys can be manufactured (or imported) for 5 years.

I wonder how far a way a cross-walk was from the sceen of the negligence/accident/crime?

Follow the money on this one...

1.) Young woman in a $5000/month nursing facility.

2.) Family can't afford to care for her for the next 50 years.

3.) NYNEX = BIG $$

And why would you expect personal responsibility to happen?
When there are so many ambulance chasers out there just waiting to take up the cause of negligent stupidity.
Hot coffee
Self inflicted lung cancer
Inept drivers
Weapons manufacturers
It's not the hand that holds it, It's the finger that can be pointed.

I can relate to a similar experience.
I was initiating changing modes of the Bus from diesel to electric while in the bay of the Tunnel entrance.
An elderly gentleman was 30 feet away, halfway up the stairs leading down to the platform, waving and yelling and staring in the general direction of the boarding area.
He misses a step and goes ass-over-tea kettle down the steps and bashes his head into the railing, causing profuse bloodflow and a major scene.
I called it in and went out to render assistance.
LATER, I GET CALLED IN TO THE BASE CHIEF'S OFFICE TO FILL OUT AN ACCIDENT REPORT...
BECAUSE THIS GUY WAS AN 'INTENDING PASSENGER'.
What?
I witnessed some old Asian guy falling down the stairs.
I wasn't involved in an accident.

Seems to be the same kind of BS.
BTW, we are trained to NOT use any kind of gesture whatsoever while operating the Bus.
If someone wishes to enter traffic in front of my coach or decides to turn against oncoming traffic, I'll put on the parking brake, stare straight ahead and cross my arms.
I feel sorry for the 'nice driver' who gets caught up in a situation such as this Topic started with.

Good luck living with the grizz.

I'd say that I'd move into a cabin near you, but that'd sort of defeat the point of getting away from people, wouldn't it?


People are responsible for their own actions, period.  If the girl got the wave by the drive to cross in front of his van, that does NOT absolve her of the need to ensure that the REST of the way is clear!!!


Darwin takes another swing...and connects solidly.

CJ

Airwolf moves to a cabin in a remote area of MT.  After a while, it gets a bit lonely.  But hell, he doesn't have to deal with any freakin idiots so life is pretty good.  He's out tillin his land one day and this guy stops buy, says he a neighbor from a few miles down the road.  Airwolf says "Hi, nice to meet someone, I guess it's been getting kind of loney around here!"  The guys says "Hey, I'm having a party over at my house, why don't you stop by tomorrow night?" "Aw sure man, sounds like fun!" Says Airwolf.  The guy says, "Well, there's gonna be some drinking.  Well, maybe a lot of drinkin! You OK with that?" "Aw yeah sounds good" says Airwolf.  "There's, eh, probably gonna be a lot of sex too", "Alright, I can use that! I can hardly wait! Do I need to bring anything over, or anybody else, I can call some friends from ar15.com?" "nah it'll just be the two of us."

Yeah!

Someone else tried it...

[img]http://www.tlc.utexas.edu/courses/fall2001/techandsociety/resources/unabomber.jpg[/img]

This exact issue was tired in NJ. Not to anyones surprise the Plaintiff won.

No good deed goes unpunished.

Mike

Now THAT'S funny!

Seriously, I've narrowed down the search area to Eastern Washington/North Idaho for relocation.  Far enough in the boonies to be left alone but close enough to civilzation that I don't have to go "Grizzly Adams" for real.

Still leaning toward Idaho as the whole Seattle vs. the rest of the state looks like it could turn out to be a replay of LA/SFO vs. the rest of California.  I'd blow my brains out to move only to find myself back in a situation where the libs in a compact geographical area can get their agenda pushed on everyone else in the state.

I live in a rural area. Most in crosswalks in town, there is no light. When I see someone waiting to cross, I stop, and hand signal them to cross in front of me. I stick my hand out my window to tell others to stop. I do this EVERY time.
When I do my hand signal, I'm letting the person know they are safe to cross in front of ME, NOT the other cars.

If the pedestrian wasn't such a MORON, they'd KNOW that.

One more instance of cleaning the gene pool. To bad the lawyers don't get it......

WOW!  Remind me never to do that again.  I am one of the most courteous drivers on the flace of the planet.  I have to be, I drive in atlanta every day to school and I have been put in positions where I cant change lanes/get to my exit because people are inconsiderate.  I do my best to NOT pass that along to other drivers.  If I see someone trying to make a left @ a difficult intersection, I usually stop and wave them on.  Same thing for pedestrians.
I guess the rules have changed, I am not doing that any more till the outcome of this case is decided.

Airwolf,

Just make sure you have a great security system  at  your cabin..... you wouldn't want Archangel to steal  your art collection.