WV schools ban swing sets due to litigious parents

[Nanuk]

Because some WV parents think that they should be financially compensated for raising stupid kids, no kids can play on swing sets in Cabell County now.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100901/ap_on_fe_st/us_odd_swing_sets_removed_1

CHARLESTON, W.Va. – Elementary school playgrounds in one West Virginia county are losing their swing sets.
Swings are being removed from Cabell County schools in southern West Virginia in part because of lawsuits over injuries.
Cabell County schools safety manager Tim Stewart said Wednesday that a lot of parents are accusing him of being un-American, but he says the cost of maintaining a safe surface is too expensive.
Stewart says a lawsuit in the past year involved a youngster who broke his arm jumping off a swing like Superman. It was settled for $20,000.
Other equipment such as monkey bars will remain. Stewart says the schools are able to maintain the proper protection underneath them.

[Neophyte Man]

Elementary school playgrounds in one West Virginia county are losing their swing sets. What a joke. Could it be the liberals are going to take our swing sets also!! Good Bye America. First our toliets now our swing sets.

[lar]

I'm surprised it hasn't happened at Blue Ridge, numerous kids have been hurt up there after playing on the equipment.

[Nanuk]

I'm surprised it hasn't happened at Blue Ridge, numerous kids have been hurt up there after playing on the equipment.


That's what playground equipment is for--little kids testing their mettle and building up a resistance to pain early in life. And if not for playground equipment and it's inherent risks, some of the classic dares of all times could never be thrown down or accepted.

[LFE]

Look mom... I can fly :-)

The Kinks wished they could fly like superman as well:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ypts1votaTs

[Tony]

Budgets are tight all over. If the equipment can't be properly maintained, it must be removed. I mean, are you really suggesting they should just lay concrete under these things and expect kids to not kill and maim themselves?

[lar]

I am just sayin' I personnally knew of two kids who broke arms and I'm surprised they didn't get sued, but for all I know they did. We are in a sue happy society. People don't think of it as suing the school, they think of it as an "insurance thing", but then the premiums go up I'm sure.

[derricksonb]

Budgets are tight all over. If the equipment can't be properly maintained, it must be removed. I mean, are you really suggesting they should just lay concrete under these things and expect kids to not kill and maim themselves?

I don't think it's an issue of the equipment being unsafe so much as it is having the proper dampening material on the ground. Materials like rubber mulch made from recycled tires....

FWIW- I agree with Nanuk. The playground is a vital testing ground for the development of fine motor skills and establishing dominance in the herd.

[Nanuk]

If the equipment can't be properly maintained, it must be removed. I mean, are you really suggesting they should just lay concrete under these things and expect kids to not kill and maim themselves?

Where I come from, these things were set up with good old-fashioned dirt underneath 'em. And I don't recall any kids that I knew of being killed or maimed.

Swings were meant to be jumped from.
Monkey bars were made to stand atop of without holding on with your hands.
Teeter-totters were used to launch objects or else you got some kid to the top and then got off and dropped him.
Slides...don't even get me going on slides.

Bottom line is that kids have played on (and occasionally gotten banged up on) this stuff for decades without a problem OR a need to write checks to some greedy parents.

[LFE]

Who didn't go for the longest jumps off the swing... or do a back flip dismount.

[PhoenixOrion]

What's the difference between what this kid did and what numerous others are or have been doing for years? How many of us did it?


Stewart says a lawsuit in the past year involved a youngster who broke his arm jumping off a swing like Superman. It was settled for $20,000.
Other equipment such as monkey bars will remain.

Right...because monkey bars are a lot safer.

I find it funny that the settlement was only $20k. How much did that family actually get after legal fees and all that?


First our toliets now our swing sets.

Toilets?

[Kensey]

Right...because monkey bars are a lot safer.

The physics of monkey-bars are different -- if you fall or jump off, you're not going as fast or falling as far. Your typical playground swing, 10 or 12 feet high, can launch a kid pretty far at a good speed.

Having said that, dirt was plenty good for us. Was there ever any playground swing worth using that didn't develop a foot-deep dent below the seat from thousands of sneakers grinding away and packing down earth?


Toilets?

Low-flow toilets (1.6 gallons or less) have been mandatory since 1995, which resulted in a black market in old toilets for awhile (the early low-flow models were worse than useless). Newer low-flow toilets work pretty well though, resulting in less demand for old-style toilets. We have a good one and a sucky one in our house.

[AAT53]

By law a certain depth of a certain grade of mulch must be under playground equipment.

The sad/pathetic thing is that people have actually stolen mulch from under the swings at BRE before. Also, the kids running around and rain causes run-off.

I know of a few times that kids broke their arms, but each of those times there was the proper amount and proper type of mulch under the swings.

I say we just go ahead and install individual cages in classrooms and just keep one kid in each one for the whole school day. They can get a bathroom break twice a day, but they can eat lunch in the cage. :rolleyes:

[twisted thread]

I say we just go ahead and install individual cages in classrooms and just keep one kid in each one for the whole school day. They can get a bathroom break twice a day, but they can eat lunch in the cage.

Gotta make sure the cages are well padded with anti-microbiotic fabric, and they have to be welded wire so there are no sharp edges to cause scratches, and, and, and................

[WVGeo]

We never had "proper dampening" under Grandma's maple tree or the old apple tree up on the hill. It just went "thump!" if you fell out of the tree.

[derricksonb]

Seriously, We have to do everything we can to protect the fragile snowflake children.

[Neophyte Man]

Low-flow toilets (1.6 gallons or less) have been mandatory since 1995, which resulted in a black market in old toilets for awhile (the early low-flow models were worse than useless). Newer low-flow toilets work pretty well though, resulting in less demand for old-style toilets. We have a good one and a sucky one in our house. Dang Kensey you are good not many folks know this. There use to be a group of us, I meant a group that went to Canada to smuggle the good ones across the border.

[LFE]

Newer low-flow toilets work pretty well though, resulting in less demand for old-style toilets. We have a good one and a sucky one in our house.

And to think that my parents gave us a bottle... HAHAHAHA

[LazerFlash]

Low-flow toilets (1.6 gallons or less) have been mandatory since 1995, which resulted in a black market in old toilets for awhile (the early low-flow models were worse than useless). Newer low-flow toilets work pretty well though, resulting in less demand for old-style toilets. We have a good one and a sucky one in our house.You just have to stay away from brands like Aqua Source and Glacier Bay. ;) FWIW, the best toilets are those made by a company called Toto. They've been well ahead of the curve for a number of years. The thing is though, to get their kind of quality, one has to be prepared to spend some money. The last one I installed for a friend cost more than $600. It was a dual flush (0.9gpf for non-solid waste & 1.6gpf for solids) and was a plumbing wonder.

[Kensey]

You just have to stay away from brands like Aqua Source and Glacier Bay.

Actually I just looked -- both of ours are American Standard toilets. The crappy one has a date stamp inside the tank of March 2001 and stickers and a stamp declaring it uses 1.6 gallons per flush; the good one has no date stamp or capacity markings but the tank is stamped F-4049 on the inside -- and looking at them one right after the other, I think I was wrong about our good toilet being low-flow. I think it's got to be at least a 2.5-gallon tank.

[LazerFlash]

Actually I just looked -- both of ours are American Standard toilets. The crappy one has a date stamp inside the tank of March 2001 and stickers and a stamp declaring it uses 1.6 gallons per flush...Generally speaking, American Standard produces a pretty low-end toilet, too... Not much above the other two brands that I mentioned. (A.S. toilets have a tendency to have issues with leakage between the tank & bowl, and back splatter from the fill tube) That said, I put an American Standard Champion series toilet in a neighbor's new bathroom last year. He got it on sale for (I think) around $300-350. He periodically tells me how great the toilet is. He, his kids and their friends have used it a lot and I have never heard any complaints about clogs, leaks or anything else. Even his wife has had a good thing or two to say about it - and she NEVER says anything good relative to me. ;)

[Chutney Daftcraft]

Has anybody here ever been injured by what could be deemed the fault of someone else?

Here's how it works. If you have health insurance, and you have an injury like this, the health insurance company contests claims payment, claiming that there is another party financially responsible for payment. Sometimes they pay and go after the other party, sometimes they don't. And when they don't, the only option one has is to pay the full amount of the bills themselves, or sue who the responsible party is.

Many of these types of lawsuits come because the injured party has no other option. So, lar is kinda right, it's an insurance thing. Sorta.

I have a relative that was injured by negligence on private property 7 years ago. She didn't sue, but she is *still* battling insurance companies and she's finding all sorts of damaging info on her credit report. She had health insurance at the time, but they have contested every claim that has to so with this injury, and because of the stonewalling, the injuries that could have been temporary are permanent. I wish she had sued, she didn't deserve what happened to her, and she doesn't deserve to be paying for it years later.

It's funny, I think about her every time this kind of crap comes up. What is the goal of these types of debate? Is the goal to be at a place where anyone's negligence can harm someone, and the harmed person needs to get over themselves on their own? A 'we'll do whatever we want and eff you' society?

[Nanuk]

That's why I like the doctrine of Contributory Negligence. Basically, if you're partially at fault for your own injury, you can't collect from anyone else.

[PhoenixOrion]

The physics of monkey-bars are different -- if you fall or jump off, you're not going as fast or falling as far. Your typical playground swing, 10 or 12 feet high, can launch a kid pretty far at a good speed.

Thanks for that little "lesson" but my point was that kids can still hurt themselves on monkey bars (obviously).

[Nanuk]

Thanks for that little "lesson" but my point was that kids can still hurt themselves on monkey bars (obviously).

That's just part of being a kid. And when your kid gets hurt doing normal kid stuff, it's your problem and not one that every taxpayer in the community should have to pony up to take care of.

[Pat_13]

...kids can still hurt themselves on monkey bars (obviously).
or just about anywhere.

Maybe they should ban pencils, they are sharp and pointy.

[PhoenixOrion]

That's just part of being a kid. And when your kid gets hurt doing normal kid stuff, it's your problem and not one that every taxpayer in the community should have to pony up to take care of.


or just about anywhere.

Maybe they should ban pencils, they are sharp and pointy.

Well, yes. Exactly. Stuff happens. We can't protect them from everything.