You both gave thoughtful replies, and I appreciate that.
I don't know why it ended up in court--do any of us REALLY know? At what point was somebody intransigent--the lawyers, Mrs. Young, or the girls?
One thing that irritates me is the girls' family defending them as wonderful kids that never did anything bad, and then taking money from strangers because of this story. Maybe people are paying the bills for the girls' prank. I wouldn't--and if they were my kids I would have had a long talk with girls who are old enough to know better, frankly.
If they wanted to do a good deed, and surprise somebody, I can think of lots of ways other than what they did. Bad judgement, compounded by parents who can't say, "My daughters used bad judgement, and I've had a long talk with them about that."
Instead, Mrs. Young is demonized...in my opinion, the comments about her are way over the top.
I'm coming to the conclusion that Mrs. Young did the wrong thing by going to court, if she wanted to teach the girls a lesson (which they should have learned, by the way) she was facing an uphill battle.
I recall hearing in the FoxNews interview with Mrs. Young that the sheriff was going to issue the girls a summons, but Mrs. Young said she wouldn't press charges, she just wanted an apology in person and I would guess that's when the parents lawyered up. Once they did, Mrs. Young had to do the same.
I don't know--the whole thing got out of hand on both sides. Knowing rural courts in my own county, they're just not clogged up with cases.
The media spin of "poor little girls just wanted to be nice and that vicious pig Mrs. Young sued them FOR NO REASON!" just doesn't fly with me. It doesn't sit well. I don't trust the media for much anyway, we don't know if the person who wrote the original story was a friend of the family, we don't know anything really.
I just fall on the side of the woman at home in a very rural area with her husband out of town, and somebody banging on the back door, not answering her, not showing themselves, and with no car in sight...
Of course, as I said before, I have a big yard dog that would likely scare them off, that would be in their faces barking before they ever got to the door...
We have teens in our area, really nice kids. Not in a million years would they ever prank anyone--it just isn't done out here. Maybe Mrs. Young's area is different.
"Once they did, Mrs. Young had to do the same?" No. This kind of thinking simply ignores the fact that it is always the plaintiff's prerogative to proceed with a lawsuit. Mrs. Young was in no way forced into a lawsuit just by virtue of the fact they consulted a lawyer---unless she felt she was entitled to more than was being offered, plain and simple. And remember, she was offered full compensation for her medical bills and a written apology---that's not trivial, even if it's not what she wanted.
And again, even if we accept that she truly "just wanted a verbal apology", going to court would in no way achieve that.