Someone has to pay...

THat somebody is you! And me and everyone else who pays for insurance. Yes ridell takes a hit but so does their insurance company. That trickles down to everyone in due time. Also our schools will have to absorb higher helmet costs over time. I worked in the sporting goods industry for years and saw a couple manufacturers go out of business and watched the cost of helmets sky rocket due to insurance costs.

I was party to a Federal Civil Case several years ago (The store I was a manager of was being sued) and according to our attorney if the jury found us less than 50% at fault we would not have to pay anything. Jury found that the majority of the incident was the fault of the plaintiff and we did not have to pay anything.

 

That said, the jury finding Riddell 27% at fault means that either the players actions or the actions of others make up the other 73%. Not sure how or why Riddell would have to pay. Maybe State and Federal Civil cases are different.

 

I'm sure some of our legal eagles can't straighten this out for us.

 

It would depend on what negligence laws were in place in the jurisdiction in which the trail was held. Historically, contributory negligence was a common law defense available in tort actions. In the past, if two people were in an accident, the injured person could only recover for his/her injuries and damages if they did not contribute to the accident in any way.

 

Currently I believe that most if not all states use some type of comparative negligence laws. Pure comparative negligence only allows a plaintiff to collect for that portion of the damages for which they were not responsible. So even if a plaintiff is found to be 99% at fault for causing there own injury or damages the defend would still be liable to pay the remaining 1%.

 

The majority of the states now use what is called modified comparative negligence laws in which a plaintiff can only recover from the defendant so long as his or her degree of contributing to their own injury or damages is less than a certain percentage (often 50%). Therefore if a plaintiff is found to be 50% or more at fault, than they are barred from recovery.

 

In this case, I believe that Colorado is a modified comparative negligence state, so it is unclear from the article as to why Riddell would have to pay in this case. I am assuming that the court must have designated other parties such as the school district, coaches, etc. as having contributed to the loss, but the article does not say whether or not this is the case. However, since Riddell is having to pay 27% then the court must have found that the plaintiff is less than 50% responsible for the injury.

 

Personally I agree with those that believe that their is an assumption of risk associated with choosing to play football. I never played when I was in school mostly because I didn't want to get hit. A lot of the guys at my school were quite a bit bigger than me and I didn't want to get hurt. I think when you make the decision to play football that you have to go into with the assumption that it is possible that you could get hurt. If the helmet was found to not be defective than I am hard pressed to agree with placing any degree of liability on Riddell.

Next target may be mouth-piece makers.

 

Most of us know that the lack of mouth-piece during a collision with another player or the ground is where a lot of concussions come from.

Could glue them in place, but then Fixodent would get sued for lose mouth pieces.

This is my son's helmet from last year. He's never had a concussion. Seems like a good testament to the helmet. Now, I have had my complaints with Ridell over the years, but nonetheless, a testament.

Actually coming soon I see many many kids not playing football. Not meaning those that are already playing, but parents of kids not starting them in football.

As long as there are college scholarships to be earned, there will be young football players.

What about us old "leather helmet players"? Can we sue the cattle farmers?