Wednesday, November 17, 2010

In the category of 'People who would look better dead'

we have David Weaving:
The Associated Press reports that David Weaving, who is serving a 10-year sentence for slamming his car into Matthew Kenney, is suing Kenney’s parents for $15,000 for causing him “great mental and emotional pain and suffering” and inhibiting his “capacity to carry on in life’s activities.”
WTF? you say?
Weaving contends that the Kenneys were negligent when they allowed their then 14-year-old son to ride his bike without a helmet.

Let’s put that claim in context, Matthew Kenney was riding his bike in a 45 mile per hour zone when Weaving slammed into him going 83 miles per hour.
I think that I will get little argument that this excrescence from a syphilitic boil is a leading member of the category in question.

2 comments:

Keith said...

Are such things tried in front of a jury?

if so, how about finding the parents guilty and awarding the creep punitively NEGATIVE damages?

Sigivald said...

Anyone can file a suit.

I don't think he has a chance of victory... and of course, this is a countersuit to their $15k suit for damages for the death (a much more reasonable suit, naturally, and arguably a lower amount than most people would sue for).

It's especially unlikely to win given that, at that speed, a helmet has almost no chance of having saved the kid's life.

(And given Connecticut's bicycle helmet statute (14-286(d)):

"Failure to wear protective headgear as required by this subsection shall not be considered to be contributory negligence on the part of the parent or the child nor shall such failure be admissible in any civil action."

So it looks like the clear text of CT statute precludes the claim that letting him not wear a helmet can be relevant in a civil suit.