Whether anyone likes legal fees or not, the lawyers usually take 30-40%. To not hurt the kid financially, that would equate to around $16M total.

Then, really, you also have to addin housing, food, clothing, etc since he cannot get a job when he grows up to pay for that either.
2) The only way the settlement of $14.5M is out of line is to presume the manufacturer did not in fact make an unsafe product. However, that is the settlement, and thus the defendants have essentially admitted that their bat was unsafe.

That family did not just get rich as the money is not enough to live in the lap of luxury while taking care of what will obviously be life-long, expensive care. If they manage that money smartly, though, it is enough, thanks to interest on savings and so on. If they don’t and act as stupidly as Pouliot cynically suggested, it will not be enough. Again, assuming a normal lifespan for the boy.

I could somewhat understand there being grounds to sue if the child was intentionally put in harm’s way, like being forced to play catcher without appropriate gear or bat without a helmet, or if the baseball bats had a defect that made them explode and send scrap metal everywhere or something. But a bat is supposed to hit a ball, and as I see it the league was playing a routine game. “The Sports Authority” had absolutely no reason at all to be mentioned in the lawsuit let alone take part in the settlement. It is a pity companies are so worried about negative publicity that they are forced to settle in situations like these.

No one was at fault, as I see it this no different than the family suing the batter and his family for everything they own and sending them to jail for murder.

Sure it is sad whenever someone gets injured, and I understand all these overly emotional replies, but I really think this kid’s family had no right to sue! Settling, even though it makes the companies look all nice and caring was a mistake as well as it is only going to set a precedent for more of these types of lawsuits.

Also, it is unlikely the kid would have even made $1 million dollars in his entire lifetime let alone $14.5. Where did that number come from? Medical costs? Insurance would have covered most of those costs; I would estimate the family would only have to pay around $50,000 out of pocket at the most. He may very well rehab successfully after one to two years as well. A better settlement, if there had to be one, would have just been to have the family send in the medical bills and have the company(s) reimburse those, not the ridiculously over-sized lump sum.

As I see it this is a case of a greedy lawyer approaching a grieving family just so he or she can profit off their misfortune. I bet the lawyer took half of that settlement…

In addition to the manufacturer, any company in the supply chain can be held liable, such as a distributor or retailer. That is why Sports Authority was involved. However, many states have an “innocent seller” defense and/or the seller can seek “contribution” from the company that was ultimately at fault for the defect.

Here, as stex points out, the plaintiffs’ lawyers likely developed significant evidence that something about the design of this particular bat was more dangerous than comparable bats, creating higher velocity and a greater risk of serious injury, or that there were safety measures that other bat manufacturers use that would have prevented the injury. If other little leaguers had suffered similar injuries, even if not as severe, that would be powerful evidence, particularly if the company knew about it and didn’t issue a recall on the bats. That would put them in danger of being hit with punitive damages–the company knew about the likelihood of this type of severe, permanent injury, yet continued to expose young kids to that danger. That would provide a strong incentive to settle rather than leave it to a jury.

As to the car analogy, yes if someone gets in an accident caused by a defective automobile they could certainly sue the manufacturer. A few examples that come to mind are the ford pinto (exploding gas tanks in rear end collisions), and toyota’s recent problems with uncontrollable acceleration. It is true that people understand they are taking certain risks when they get behind the wheel, but no one would consent to drive an unreasonably dangerous death trap that would explode and cause severe or fatal injury in a routine collision. The same reasoning applies to this case. True, playing baseball involves certain inherent risks, and if the bat was as safe as any other on the market, the player would have no case and the company never would have gone through six years of litigation only to settle. However, no one would agree to play in a game with a bat that was not designed in a way that would reduce an unreasonable risk of serious injury.

So it is reasonable that the kid’s parents were too stupid to know that something swinging a bat made of anything hard from forty feet away was inherently dangerous?

Of course it’s dangerous, and everyone knows it. But what if, the combination of stronger, faster kids AND ever increasing technology made it so that balls coming off today’s technology fueled equipment were so fast, that kids couldn’t react in time? What then?

And generally, I don’t think lawyers tend to understand the concept of insurance. Basically, when insurance pays out, that means we all pay. It’s not actually free money.

You really think it’s the lawyers that don’t understand who foots the bill for this stuff? Lawyers don’t bring these cases to court by themselves, people need to find lawyers to sue as the lawyers don’t have standing. Every time someone sues a large company for negligence, like this, and says who cares as insurance will cover, they don’t understand who ultimately pays for all this. It’s not the lawyers’ fault.

As for the suing, again it’s possible that the manufacturers, and subsequently Sports Authority, coudl be held as negligent if they knew the product they were making was inherently dangerous beyond a normal usage.

A wooden bat is an acceptable use. An aluminum bat that turns every hard ball into a racket ball due to physics, would be negligent.

This sport has risk…. you hold harmless xxxx. All expenses, incurred due to, injury are responsibility of player and/,or players family…”

That absolves the league of responsibility (and even then not necessarily), not the bat manufacturers. As alluded to above, what if the Louisville Slugger people created a bat out of a compound that made the ball leave the bat at a speed that was so fast, a player 45′ away couldn’t react fast enough? Would you think that’d be a negligent act?

He’s still a kid now (16) so most likely the parents will be set up as beneficiaries in case he dies. Once he turns 18 he’ll be able to, if he’s of sound mind, to set the beneficiaries (if there’s any remaining payment left) to whomever he chooses.

Time to take a week off, Matthew. Something toxic built up.

I hope that the $14.5M is enough to give this young man the best care he can possibly receive for the rest of his life, and I do hope there is plenty “leftover” to help he and his family enjoy what is left of their lives since the unfortunate incident.