I imagine it went down like this: One night over drinks, a couple lawyers got together and started one-upping one another with crazy boasts. At the end of the night, one of them said, “Dude, I could sue Louisville Slugger for making baseball bats. And win!”
The other lawyer thought this was ludicrous and bet him that he couldn’t. Well, the other lawyer lost that bet. WAVE 3 TV in Louisville reports that a Montana jury has found that Louisville Slugger batmakers Hillerich and Bradsby should have put warning labels on its aluminum bats, and must pay $850,000 to the family of 18-year-old player Brandon Patch, who was killed by a line drive in a 2003 American Legion game.
The story says:
The Patch family argued aluminum bats are dangerous because they cause the ball to travel faster than those hit off wooden bats. They said Brandon did not have enough time to react after the ball was hit.
Although the jury did award the Patch family money saying that H&B failed to place warning labels on the aluminum bats, they also said the bat was not defective.
I guess the jury believes that had warning labels been placed on the bats, Patch would have read the label, refused to play and be alive today.
Montana jury finds H&B at fault in baseball bat lawsuit [WAVE 3 TV (Louisville)]
(Photo: Flying Photog)
(Thanks, Brenndan!)
More From Consumerist
-
April Recall Roundup: Don’t Eat The Bunny Forks
-
Duo Tries To Scare Pizza Delivery Man Into Giving Up Free Food With Help Of Of Baseball Bat
-
Behind The Bubbly: Why You’ll Be Toasting 2013 With Champagne Tonight
-
Ab Circle Pro Hit With $15-25 Million Settlement Because 3 Minutes A Day Won't Give You A Six Pack
-
Maker’s Mark Dropping Potency Of Its Bourbon By 3% Due To Demanding Customers
“Warning: This jock strap will give you jock itch” The legal system is sickening isn’t it?!? No common sense required for existence.
Why didn’t the family sue the league for allowing aluminum bats in play? What…don’t they have any money?
I wonder why they didn’t sue Timex for not putting a label on a stopwatch that it won’t actually stop time to let the player react?
Or perhaps the glove manufacturer could be sued because they didn’t have a warning that wearing a baseball glove can reduce reaction time because of the weight of the glove.
@PsiCop:
@GitEmSteveDave: #RosaRocks: Awesome picture.
Funnily enough I had the same thing happen to me a year back, and I was just a spectator. I was sitting basically at first base on the second level of our minor league stadium here in Dayton, and the guy batting broke the bat in half when he hit. The freaking bat flew straight towards me, and I had just enough time to let myself slip out of my chair and have it go sharp end into my chair. Not a particularly fun experience at the time, but hilarious now. Oh, and sitting in he same seat this year I had two foul balls hit the wall directly in front of me during a single game. I think I’ll just stay far away from those seats for a while.
@GitEmSteveDave: #RosaRocks: I was at that game. That play was horrifying. It was pure luck that the barrel end of the bat hit him and not the broken end.
I don’t feel that the bat manufacturer here is at fault for making the bats. So on those grounds, this lawsuit is wrong. However, I do feel very strongly that aluminum bats should not be allowed, especially not when adults are playing. It frightens me to watch NCAA games with all these big college students using aluminum bats. That responsibility lies with the leagues to ban them.
MLB also needs to ban maple bats. Nick Green got lucky. A Pirates coach was impaled through the face with a maple bat shard in 2008 and it severed nerves in his face. These things are whizzing all over the field like missiles. It’s a miracle no one has died yet. Hopefully it won’t take that much; they only started making base coaches wear helmets after a Rockies minor league coach was killed by a line drive last year.
@GitEmSteveDave: #RosaRocks: Yes. Last jury I was on we found for the plaintiff but awarded him next to nothing. The defendant was legally at fault, but the plaintiff trumped up his injuries and lied to us for three straight days.
@Underpants Gnome: Mentioning that you don’t think the Federal Government has any business dictating Drug Control Policy to the States will get you excluded from Federal Drug cases. The guy next to me was a member of the ACLU, and pro-Legalization, so that works too.
We did get to park for free, though. Not sure why you had to pay. You didn’t get issued a juror parking pass?
@mythago: The thing that really confuses me is that if the stats were there to suggest that the aluminum bats are more dangerous than wooden bats, and if this is supposed to be common-knowledge amongst baseball enthusiasts, then why isn’t the league also at fault for allowing players to use the bat?
Besides, accidents can happen regardless of the equipment used. Granted the argument here seems to be that an accident was more likely to happen with an aluminum bat in play, but someone illustrated that wooden bats can be just as dangerous on the last page, so I’m not sure how they made it stick.
I dunno, I just don’t think that this was such an open-and-shut case. Then again, I’m just a hair’s-breadth away from being diagnosed as being legally retarded, so maybe I’m missing something.
@mythago: Thank you for being the dissenting voice, I was beginning to think I was the only one. Nobody seems to be noticing that this was not some little kid in Little League but an 18-year-old man, and that it was awarded in Montana, which is not famous for big jury decisions (as far as I know).
@mythago: If someone ever comes up with something like that, we can discuss the possibility. “What ifs” are of no account in the real world. Using them to justify idiotic legalism, only fuels business for lawyers.
After aluminum bats have been in use, and even approved by sports governing bodies for some uses for much of that time, how useful do you honestly believe a warning label is going to be?
The US legal system is a joke. A complete joke. Only a fool … or a trial lawyer … would refuse to acknowledge that.
@mythago:
How long do you think it would take you to figure out that the polymer bat hits the ball a lot farther and harder than a wooden bat?
@RecordStoreToughGuy_IsBeing(pur)SuedByAMonster: Well, you might want to say it only if it’s true. I was once involved in a case where a guy though saying he was a member of FIJA was his ticket home. It wasn’t, to his dismay.
@K-Bo: i used to work in a toy store. one day a woman came in and asked for something a 8 year old boy couldn’t break.
i told her i didn’t think there was anything an 8 year old boy couldn’t break, given enough time and motivation. she asked about the aluminum bats and i said it would probably be very difficult for him to break and might take a while. then i told her that if he has a breaking things problem that an aluminum baseball bat was probably not the best idea.
her response: “i’m his aunt, not his mom, i don’t have to live with him” and bought it.
@treimel:
It is miliseconds.
I read the study. Wood bats = 98.6 mph (145 ft/sec) and aluminum bats = 106.5 mph (156 ft/sec). Assuming instantaneous acceleration, the ball would reach the pitcher’s mound (60.5 ft) in .417 seconds if hit from a wooden bat and .388 seconds if hit from an aluminum bat, a difference of 29 miliseconds, which is an extremely small amount of time regardless of your reaction speed.
@PsiCop: And, sadly, the trial lawyers are the types of lawyers that strike it rich…
@treimel:
oops–mis-read my own source–they’re actally saing 250 millisecond reaction time, which I know is wrong. In any event, I absolutely stand by my basic proposition: an eight mph difference between the batter and the mound is a very significant difference. Anyone who plays or even watches baseball knows that is the case.
@Falcon5768: Either way, turf burn still sucks!
@mythago: Oh, yeah, the guy next to me actually pulled out his ACLU membership card and showed it to the prosecutor. I also got grilled on my opinion on Federal Drug policy to make sure I wasn’t just making up some bullshit “I hate the gubmint” argument to get excused.
@mythago: Had to look that one up.
My dad was stunned to be impaneled on a criminal trial like a week after he retired–he was a lawyer, which in Cook County has generally been kryptonite to both sides. However, the charge was DUI, and tons of the prospective jurors were insisting that alcohol never touched their fair lips at any time, so my dad’s willingness to say “Sure, I like a drink” made him more palatable. (Guy was found guilty nonetheless and proved to have priors.)
@Underpants Gnome: And not in NYC either. We get $40 per day while on jury duty (whether on a case or not). We used to get subway fare, but I do not recall if we still do. And if we don’t, then the $4.50 r/t would have to come out of the $40 we get. So, a whopping $35.50 per day. BTW, don’t forget to add your jury duty income to the income tax forms. You’d hate to get a letter from the IRS & state a couple of years later saying you didn’t declare your jury duty earnings and you now owe tax & penalties.
@RecordStoreToughGuy_IsBeing(pur)SuedByAMonster: I got an EFF senior attorney on a jury panel once. She made mincemeat of the defense attorney who was trying to show she was biased. He had to use a peremptory challenge to get her out.
@RichasB: I had a Black man talking on a cell phone run a red light and crash into my car. Does that mean Black people, or men, or Black men should come with a warning label?
@GitEmSteveDave: #RosaRocks: Nope, and the people next to me ended up getting a free shirt out of it… I don’t think they realized that it was me it almost hit not them.
@catastrophegirl: hah, +1. Be my consoomurist fwend?
@treimel:
29ms is a little misleading. If you hit a 106 and 98 mph ball from home plate at the same time, the 106 mph ball would arrive at the mound 4.5 feet before the 98mph ball.
@treimel: I also think that 25 milliseconds is negligible when talking about baseball and reaction times. Hence the reason you see pitchers get hit by the ball in major league games. It happens and it hurts no matter how fast you are.
Let’s see if you can do 25 milliseconds by just clicking your mouse?
[getyourwebsitehere.com]
@squinko: You’re ALL missing the damn point. It’s cars and cell phones that need the blasted warning labels.
</sarcasm>
@floraposte: I was dismissed from the panel on a DUI pool because I was emphatic in stating my general distrust of police, and because when the prosecutor asked if, as viewed from my seat, he told me a pen were in his hand, would it be reasonable to say that what I saw was proof that what he said was true, I told him it wasn’t–what he was holding could easily be a mechanical pencil.
They don’t like it when you’re argumentative.
@Hobz:
Not nearly as often as you see them catch them, or avoid them. Obviously, it depends on a ton of factors such as how hard it’s hit, their position after release, etc., but most batted balls that are come-backers simply don’t hit the pitcher. Sorry, but anybody who watches baseball knows that to be true. The point is, I can hot an 80 mph fastball fairly easily, and I can’t with a 90mph ball. That’s the difference he derides as milliseconds–when on the mound, it’s all the difference in the world.
@treimel: Along that line of thought, we should go back to using proper horse drawn carriages too. Modern cars are much more deadly in a crash than carriages and were in use far longer than the modern automobile.
@mythago: I was called for jury duty (there are no exceptions for lawyers in my county). The judge asked if anyone on the panel knew anyone. I raised my hand. The judge laughed, thanked me by name and said I’d probably be OK. Unfortunately, defense counsel was a personal friend and didn’t want me anywhere near his jury. He used a peremptory. I probably would have voted for the death penalty.
@Gruppa: Horses could hurt somebody though. And you could fall from a carriage. Are you trying to kill everyone?
@Falcon5768: Oh I know why everyone has to pander to the lowest common denominator; it just still frustrates me though. It’s not the bat’s fault nor is its manufacturer’s fault. It’s sad for his family that it happened, but it doesn’t mean anyone is responsible for it happening.
@ElPresidente408: “the 106 mph ball would arrive at the mound 4.5 feet before the 98mph ball.”
Due to space/time dilation effects altering the distance from home plate to pitchers mound I suppose?
@RecordStoreToughGuy_IsBeing(pur)SuedByAMonster: This was my assumption as well.