Posted on 11/26/2015 12:38:19 PM PST by DogByte6RER
Scared man who sued over 'haunted house' loses in court
People who go to "haunted house" attractions to be scared shouldn't be surprised when they're scared, a state court of appeals has ruled.
A state appeals court has given precedent-setting status to a ruling that gave the scary mansions the same legal status as ski lodges, bumper cars and other commercial recreational facilities: They're not responsible for injuries caused by an "inherent risk" of the activity.
In this case, the court said, that risk was the terror Scott Griffin experienced after leaving what he thought was the exit gate of the Haunted Trail, an outdoor haunted house at Balboa Park in San Diego, one evening shortly before Halloween in 2011. As he walked away, laughing with a group of friends, he said, a man turned on a gas-powered chainsaw and pointed it at him.
Griffin said he backed away, asked the man to stop, then started running, with the saw-wielder in pursuit. Griffin fell and injured his wrist.
In a lawsuit against the trail's owner, Haunted Hotel Inc., Griffin argued that the company should not have trained its actors to chase visitors beyond the marked exit. He said he had feared he was in danger - real fear, he argued, as opposed to the "fun fear" he felt inside the gate.
Haunted Hotel said the fake exit was part of the trail, and the man with the saw - which had no chain - was the park's "Carrie effect." It's a reference to the last scene in the movie "Carrie," and many other horror flicks, in which the audience is given one final scare after being led to believe their horror is over.
(Excerpt) Read more at m.sfgate.com ...
I bet our rooster has 2” long spurs. Fortunately he is fairly well mannered unlike some of the other we had that appeared to be made out of mean.
Is is like the dew claw on a dog, a spur that assists the rooster in holding on to the hen?
I learned the hard way about the fin spines on catfish. Right in my thumb webbing!
I am not sure about using it while breeding but the do us it to fight. The spur is on the back of the leg and the bird jumps up and stretches its legs forward and gaffs on the way down.
“The way I wanna be loved by you”.
Great song, the posts brought back laughs and good memories.
Did he graduuate from the U of M?
Can roosters be de-spurred?
It’s called a spur; “I cut you so bad, you ask my why I cut you so bad”.
Yes, just don’t cut to deep.
the headline makes perfect sense
but
reading the article, I disagree with the court
there is a difference between what a reasonable person would expect to experience in a regular ‘haunted house’ (Casper the friendly ghost saying BOO, maybe a skeleton making creaking noises, or??)
AND
what happened to this guy .... (a scary employee chasing him with a gas-powered chain saw!?????!! Since when is assault with a chain saw part of normal Halloween haunted house amusements?
pinged yet?
It wasn’t outside the premises, even though he thought it was, because he went through a fake exit.
Oddly enough, real and fake exits have long been a mainstay of sideshows. A no lesser light than P.T. Barnum used such a gimmick, signs that encouraged the people inside, “This way to the Egress!”, touting “the egress” as a big attraction, when in fact it was just a synonym for Exit. People would be outside on the street before realizing they had been skunked. And no readmission without paying again.
The bottom line is that the court was right.
The court was right just because it said so? Is that the bottom line?
The bottom line is always, always, things happen for a reason. And that reason isn’t always righteousness. It could have easily been reasoned the other way; I see disdain for the whole affair written in the court’s attitude.
I mean, even by biblical rules this place was skating on thin, slick ice.
I say that if the people running the place do not themselves learn a lesson the easy way, they will learn it the hard way. If someone was packing heat, someone else could have ended up dead. There is a difference between show and real life.
About that kids age I was headed up to the cabin with my grandfather. We’d always stop in at the house down the mountain on the way in, and chat with his friend Stanley and his wife. Stanley was deaf from birth, I could hardly understand him.
On this trip, while they were talking I picked up he was asking Grandpap if I’d ever been “spurred”. Grandpap asked me, I didn’t know what the heck it was. Stanley motioned to the field over and adjacent fence, and Grandpap indicated as soon as I hopped over it, I’d get to finding out all about in short order.
Now, I’m already on alert that the “old dudes” are gonna pull one off on the youngster, but for the life of me, I can’t noodle it out. The fence isn’t electrified, so that’s not it, so I hop over, still not seeing anything around, and definitely not wanting to be a pussy about it. I walk out a bit, there’s a white chicken in the distance, but hey, it’s just a chicken... Kinda moving my way... Really fast...whoa, looks like feathered Tasmanian Devil in motion...
YAAAaaaaaghhhhhh!!!
That chicken was on me like stink on s***, I lit out for the fence with that feathered demon working me like a politician on a bond measure. When I’d vaulted it, Stanley and Grandpap were about to tears laughing, noting that, as they gathered their wits, the painfull welts running up my legs were the result of the spurs on the inside of the roosters legs...
You’re a good storyteller, and that’s a funny memory, but if you had been my son, I would have been reading the Riot Act to your Grandad before the day was done!
The spur you refer to being put on is actually a steel blade attached to the natural one.
Oh, my dad probably would have been duly impressed with that one, I think he got taken Snipe hunting when he was dating my mom.
To this day I can not go up to that cabin without feeling a strong pull to just say screw it, stay there and never go back to work. I spent about 9 weeks straight up there as a kid helping Grandpap out while him and his brother built his retirement house, no electric and you have to haul water from the spring across the creek.
Was just there in early October with two friends, stopped there for an overnight on the way to the field target national match in NC.
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