End Of Child's Play

IBD Editorials ^ | September 2, 2010 | Investors Business Daily staff

[Kaslin]

Overlawyered: Fearing lawsuits over injuries, a West Virginia county is removing swing sets from elementary schools. A minor, local issue? No. America's litigious society has changed the way kids play.

Roughly a year after a child broke his arm jumping off a swing like Superman and his parents are settling a lawsuit for $20,000, Cabell County, W.V., schools are yanking swing sets from school playgrounds. The lawsuit was one of two filed in the last year against Cabell County schools over swing set injuries, the West Virginia Record reported Thursday. School safety manager Tim Stewart, who is overseeing the removal, said he sees "a high potential when it comes to swings and lawsuits."

What's happening in Cabell County is not an isolated case. Local governments, fearful of lawsuits, have been for years closing pools, stripping playgrounds of equipment and banning outdoor games.

A Massachusetts elementary school has told students they can't play tag. One Boston school forbids handstands while another in Needham, Mass., doesn't allow students to hang upside down from the monkey bars. A pool in Hazleton, Pa., closed some years ago after a swimmer sued for $100,000 because he cut his foot running and jumping into the pool, though he'd been warned not to.

"There is nothing left in playgrounds that would attract the interest of a child over the age of four," Philip K. Howard, lawyer and author, wrote in the Wall Street Journal in 2008.

"Exercise in schools is carefully programmed, when it exists at all. ... Broward County, Fla., banned running at recess. .. . Little Leagues forbid sliding into base. Some towns ban sledding. High diving boards are history, and it's only a matter of time before all diving boards disappear."

[madprof98]

Trial lawyers need to go the way of the swingsets.

[Loud Mime]

Amazing...

[Egon]

1. Term Limits
2. TORT REFORM
3. Tax Reform

In that order. (because without #1, you won't get the other two.)

[Pollster1]

Roughly a year after a child broke his arm jumping off a swing like Superman and his parents are settling a lawsuit for $20,000 . . .

I hope that parasitic parent finds himself and his child unwelcome on anyone's property. It would be a harsh lesson that immoral actions have consequences, but it's better than growing up to think that it's okay to sue your neighbors and profit from your own reckless actions as if the money comes from thin air.

[truthguy]

I can remember jumping off swings all the time as a kid. It was a lot of fun. If I had broken an arm doing this, my parent (being decent people) would have never considered suing the school district. Kids have a certain risk just being kids. This lawsuit should have been tossed. This is just the type of thing that makes people hate lawyers. If any lawyers are reading this; you have brought this upon yourselves. You (or the litigious ones among you) are destroying the country. We must have loser pays provisions in our tort laws.

[Political Junkie Too]

Pretty soon the seesaw will just be seen, and then it's gone it will be memory of what I once saw.

-PJ

[Political Junkie Too]

Pretty soon the seesaw will just be seen, and when it's gone it will be a memory of what I once saw.

-PJ

[Kaslin]

BTTP

[Kaslin]

What does this have to do with the article?

[SpaceBar]

If it saves just one slip-and-fall lawyer it will be worth it. /s

[tet68]

“There is nothing left in politics that would attract the interest of a child over the age of four,” Philip K. Howard, lawyer and author, wrote in the Wall Street Journal in 2008.

[mmercier]

i worked installing playground sets at schools. the few companies who assemble these units are marvels of modern assembly technique.

one of those i worked on had a two foot bed of cedar mulch to prevent injuries in falls.

in any case, the way it works in massachusetts is the community will pay to install the sets and then then pay to have them removed after the first lawsuit.

this country is becoming a bad joke; unless you see how trial lawyers live.

i have put playsets in their yards too.

[VanDeKoik]

There are none where I live. I’m sure slides will be next.

[Nowhere Man]

I can remember jumping off swings all the time as a kid. It was a lot of fun. If I had broken an arm doing this, my parent (being decent people) would have never considered suing the school district. Kids have a certain risk just being kids. This lawsuit should have been tossed. This is just the type of thing that makes people hate lawyers. If any lawyers are reading this; you have brought this upon yourselves. You (or the litigious ones among you) are destroying the country. We must have loser pays provisions in our tort laws.

This is sad. The 1970's and 1980's were the last good time to be a kid. You didn't have to worry about bicycle helmets and unless there was a medical need to wear one, you would have been seen as a wimp. You had swing sets, jungle jims, monkey bars, slides and so on. We have become, well wimps, although I wish I could use other words here but I get banned.

I remember swinging on the swing sets as a kid and sometimes we pretended to by flying Corsairs in Pappy Boyington's squadron since at that time, "Baa Baa Black Sheep" was on TV, later we pretended to be flying "X-Wings" and "Y-Wings" in "Star Wars.". One jungle jim became the Starship Enterprise and we played "Star Trek" and so on. Sometimes it was also the "Jupiter 3" and we pretended we were the next mission after the "Jupiter 2" in "Lost in Space."

See Saws? Well I remember it was: "Farmer Brown, farmer brown, let me down, if you don't, you're in love with Farrah Fawcett Majors." or fill in the blank. I'm 44, there are times I wish I was 20 years younger, but if it meant that I would have to give up my memories and experiences during this last time to be a kid, forget it, I'd rather by my regular, bifocaled, middle aged, self.

[6SJ7]

If this plays out, so to speak, not only will kids be deprived of the thrill of jumping off a swing or seeing who can climb to the top of the jungle gym the fastest; but those kids will face a future learning to be afraid of new or exciting experiences.

[SpaceBar]

Mercedes-Benz and Luxus dealerships hardest hit.

[sam_paine]

What does this have to do with the article?

Really, Kas? You don't see how tort reform could help here? really?

[tbpiper]

In my day (a week after dirt was invented) I would have had my arm fixed and my butt paddled.

[Nowhere Man]

There are none where I live. I’m sure slides will be next.

At the elementary school I went to, they recently reopened it a few years ago, the playground is so small, it doesn't compare the wide areas we had as a kid. IIRC, I think they have some sort of jungle jim that resembles a Borg Cube from "Star Trek, the Next Generation" and that is pretty much it. I'll have to look again, my old school is also my polling place when I vote which I plan to do.

Hmmmm, in the unlikely even that would require "Alien Space Bats" where if I was recalled to elementary school, I could always play "Locutus of Borg" (ala Captain Picard when he was assimilated) and pretend I go around the Earth assimilating lawyers and selling them as slaves to the Ferengi. B-) B-P