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J. Fernandez
Automobile Accident Case
Fatal Amusement Park Accidents
Attorney Michael Grossman Explains What to Do After a Fatal Amusement Park Accident
The thrill of going to an amusement park lies in the illusion of danger presented by the rides. Unfortunately, sometimes, the hazard presented is not just an illusion, and customers are injured or killed while visiting an amusement park. Every year approximately 7,000 people are injured in amusement park accidents and five people are killed.
Thus, amusement park fatalities aren’t common, but they do happen. If you have lost a loved one in a fatal amusement park accident, then you and your family may be entitled to file a wrongful death lawsuit against the owner of the park due to premises liability laws or some other negligent third party who caused the accident, so long as the death was deemed to be a wrongful death. When someone is killed due to the non-justifiable inaction or actions of another party, that’s considered to be a wrongful death. All entities owe all other parties certain legal responsibilities to take reasonable care not to cause them harm. When someone is killed as a result of another party neglecting this duty, then the victim’s family has the right to pursue compensation through a wrongful death lawsuit. Such a lawsuit, however, is highly intricate and technical and well beyond the scope of understanding of a non-lawyer. Thus, if a loved one has been killed in a fatal amusement park accident, then you will need the help of a seasoned and crafty wrongful death lawyer. At Grossman Law Offices, Michael Grossman and his team of associates have been helping grieving families of wrongfully killed Texans and Arkansans for 20 years, and we know how to help.
Causes of Fatal Amusement Park Accidents
At any amusement park, there are a wide variety of dangers, so patrons can be injured or killed due to a wide variety of mishaps, making several different parties liable. If the operator failed to maintain or operate the ride properly, causing a fatality, then the amusement park company would be held accountable. A legal principle called respondeat superior holds all employers accountable for the negligent actions or inactions of their employees.
If some component of a ride fails – a safety pin, the electrical wires, a lap bar, broken support beams, cracked welding, or malfunctioning safety equipment – then the manufacturer of that component may be held accountable through a product liability lawsuit.
Furthermore, it’s also possible that the negligence of another patron at the amusement park caused a fatal accident. For instance, rocking a car, ignoring safety regulations, dropping something out of a speeding ride, or standing up on a ride. When this occurs, the negligent customer can be held accountable.
With so many different possibilities, fatal amusement park accidents are often caused by a combination of factors. Perhaps a customer behaved in an unsafe manner on the ride only because the attending staff allowed him or her to do so, and then this led to the failure of safety equipment that would not have otherwise even been tested. In this instance, compensation could be pursued from all liable parties.
In very rare occasions, someone just dies on an amusement park ride without anyone being to blame. Many amusement park rides are thrilling, and it’s not unheard of for a patron to simply die of a heart attack while riding one.
Determining Whether or Not You Have the Grounds for a Wrongful Death Lawsuit
The victim’s family, also referred to as the plaintiffs, must be able to prove that defendant was negligent in order to have the grounds for a successful wrongful death case. In order to meet that end, the plaintiffs must be able to establish three essential components: duty, breach, and causation.
Duty
The deceased must have been owned a legal duty by the defendant. When it comes to an amusement park accident, this could be the operator running the ride in a safe fashion or a park patron riding the ride in a safe manner. However, there’s a legal principle called premises liability that comes into play here. All property owners owe legal duties to visitors to their property, with the duty in question changing depending upon the type of visitor:
- Invitees are people who willingly and consciously visit a property both for their own benefit and the benefit of the owner. Amusement park patrons are invitees as they benefit by the fun they have the amusement park, and the amusement park owner benefits from the business. The other two types of visitors are Licensees and Trespassers, but they don’t factor into our discussion about amusement park accidents. Property owners owe invitees the duty to seek out dangerous conditions and warn patrons of these hazards. For example, a water park warning patrons about slippery floors. Moreover, property owners must warn patrons of any pre-existing dangers, like an observation tower that wobbles in a strong wind. Finally, property owners must not intentionally and knowingly injury invitees. An amusement park owner owes all of these duties to invitees.
Breach
After a duty has been established, the plaintiffs must prove the defendant neglected that duty. For example, if a water park did not warn a patron about a slippery floor, then this is a breach of duty.
Causation
Finally, the victim’s family must be able to prove that the breach of the legal duty resulted in the death of the victim. To continue our analogy, the victim died from injuries he or she suffered when he or she slipped and fell after not being warned of the slippery floor.
If you can prove these three elements after the death of your loved one in an amusement park accident, then you have the right to seek compensation through a wrongful death lawsuit.
What Kind of Compensation Are You Entitled to Seek After Losing a Loved one in an Amusement Park Accident?
The surviving loved ones of someone who dies in an amusement park accident can file a single all-encompassing lawsuit pursuing causes of action for both wrongful death damages and survival damages. When a family has lost a loved one, it takes an enormous emotional and financial blow. Wrongful death damages allow the family members – spouses, children, and parents – to become whole again financially by seeking compensation for their individual financial and emotional suffering. While it might seem distasteful to think about money when you’ve lost a loved one, a wrongful death lawsuit is often the only way to bring the party responsible for your loved one’s death to justice. Surviving family members can seek wrongful death damages including:
- Funeral expenses.
- Loss of the economic backing supplied to the family by the victim.
- Mental and emotional trauma experienced by the family members.
- Loss of the unique consortium, parental guidance, and familial love only the deceased could provide.
Survival damages, conversely, may only be sought by the victim’s closest living relative, with that right passing down from spouse, to child, to parent, and finally to sibling. These damages allow the representative of the estate to seek the damages for the victim’s suffering, including:
- Medical bills.
- Property damage.
- Emotional and mental trauma and the pain and suffering experienced during the accident.
In Arkansas, it’s critically important to remember that the family must appoint an executor to act as personal representative of the family when filing one wrongful death lawsuit for all parties involved.
What Grossman Law Offices Can Do to Help Your Family After a Fatal Amusement Park Accident
As we mentioned earlier, in most years there are only a handful of people who die in amusement park accidents nationwide. However, the grotesque and shocking details of the fatalities that do occur in amusement park accidents usually get quite a bit of attention in the media and public eye. Thus, amusement park owners usually attempt to hush up the situation by offering a settlement to the surviving loved ones in exchange for signing a waiver of liability and a non-disclosure agreement. It may very well be in your best interests to take that route. However, you still need to consult with a skilled wrongful death attorney before agreeing to or signing anything. You’ve lost your loved one and will never get him or her back, so you deserve to be compensated fairly. Conversely, if the amusement park doesn’t want to compensate you, then you’re going to need a wrongful death attorney on your side with the knowledge and skill to win the restitution to which you are entitled in court.
For the past two decades, Michael Grossman and his team of associates at Grossman Law Offices have been helping the grieving families of people who’ve been wrongfully killed in both Texas and Arkansas. We’ve enabled hundreds of people to recover many millions of dollars in damages. You can rely upon our expertise to resolve your fatal amusement park accident no mater what its nature. Call us now for a free consultation at 1-855-589-5645 to learn exactly how we can be of assistance to you.
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$150,000.00
$50,000.00
$341.00
(policy limits) A young mother was killed in an accident involving two commercial vehicles, one an 18-wheeler. The accident occurred as the young woman was a passenger in a vehicle that was traveling down a highway in the early morning hours. Without warning, the vehicle in which she was a passenger collided with a stalled 18-wheeler that parked in the right of way, resulting in catastrophic injuries that claimed the young woman's life soon thereafter.
The authorities initially faulted the driver of the vehicle in which the victim was a passenger, stating that he was using an electronic device rather than paying full attention to the roadway. However, the 18-wheeler was indeed blocking the roadway and plaintiff alleged that the vehicle did not follow the requirements of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Act in regard to providing adequate reflective or laminated warning at specific intervals. Further, the plaintiffs alleged that the defendant failed to remove his vehicle from the roadway when he first noticed signs of mechanical failure.
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$78,000.00
$370.00
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$33,133.00
$400.00
Recovery for the victim of a slip and fall premises liability accident.
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Additionally, our attorneys countered the claims of contributory negligence as a practical matter in that the mother was indeed monitoring the child's activity and the child literally ran up to the railing and immediately fell through the rails. Alternatively, we argued that the doctrine of parental immunity applied and that the contributory negligence, if any such negligence ever even occurred, of the mother would not be admissible. The case was satisfactorily resolved through litigation.
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$5,000.00
(policy limits) Our firm was hired to pursue an intoxicated driver who killed an elderly school crossing guard. The fatal accident occurred as the decedent was escorting a woman and her child across the roadway through a crosswalk. The defendant then sped through the school zone, in an intoxicated a state, and struck the decedent who died on the scene.
The family hired our firm to investigate and pursue the defendant under a wrongful death cause of action. Following our investigation and preliminary vehicle inspection, our attorneys issued a Stowers' demand to the defendants. A significant factor in resolving this claim is that merely days before we submitted our demand to the defendant' insurance carrier, we won a large case against the very same insurance carrier, which was one of several such victories secured against the carrier in our firm's history. Our threats of litigation were therefore heeded and the defendants offered policy limits to settle the claim without the need to file suit.
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Our attorneys were hired to investigate a fatal motor vehicle accident involving an 18-wheeler that claimed the lives of several men, the family of one in particular which our firm represented, felt that the official version of events as outlined in the police report was not an accurate portrayal of the facts and circumstances of the collision.
Our firm launched an investigation, the findings of which served as the basis for a subsequent lawsuit. We were able to determine that the defendant's accusations of contributory negligence on behalf of he driver of the vehicle did appear to be valid and plaintiffs conceded as much. However, the plaintiffs were adamant that the contributory negligence did not entirely overshadow the negligence on behalf of the defendant truck driver.
Through physical evidence and an admission of liability that our attorneys were able to importune from the defendant under oath, we were able to show that the defendant had indeed pulled into the path of the decedent's vehicle, which was of consequence irrespective of the decedent's own contributory negligence, and that icontact.com
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(policy limits) A father of two was killed on the job when he fell from a personnel platform atop an elevated piece of machinery. The defendant was initially afforded protection from a liability suit by virtue of their workers' comp policy. Upon thorough investigation, it became evident that gross negligence was at the root of the accident, and suit was filed accordingly. A successful outcome was obtained through litigation.
$550,000.00
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