The Slide Trial

Really interesting read on a kid who suffers a catastrophic injury sliding into third base during a JV baseball game, prompting the family to sue the coach.

He told a kid to slide. Then he got sued. - NJ.com

 

How in the hell does this get that far? It’s embarrassing that they would sue.

 

I have been on a jury in a civil case. Medical malpractice.

We sided with the defense in that one. It was 7-1; needed only be 6-2 in our state. In my eyes, the burden of proof was very much on the plaintiff. The plaintiff came nowhere near establishing that the doctor was negligent. Reading this story, there's nothing presented that shows the coach was negligent. I don't know what would have made me side with the plaintiff in this case, but it's not shown in the story.

 

I agree. It's crazy that someone could try to argue that the coach was negligent. And the points they tried to raise ... that maybe he didn't have enough training to be a JV coach? Holy shit, we'd have no coaches anywhere at the lower prep/youth levels if people were held to that sort of standard.

 

A riveting -- and chilling -- tale spun by Politi. If someone wants revenge on you/wants to use you as a scapegoat, your life is going to irreparably change. While I feel terrible for the kid, the injury he suffered could have happened anywhere at any time. It just happened to be at a school-sponsored event instead of on his bike, in a car accident or slipping on a wet floor.

Just imagine being on that stand, trying to recall the exact situation from multiple years ago, while attorneys are doing their best to distract, confuse and frustrate you while attempting to discredit your livelihood or reputation.

I understand the dad's need to "be made whole," but hundreds of thousands of young athletes get injured every year. To ruin someone else's life in order to achieve that hits way too close to home for me and for others on this board. One split-second decision shouldn't result in having your life turned upside down.

Excellent storytelling. And I'll be having flashbacks the rest of the day.

 

This is a terrifying story when I think about how it could apply to me coaching youth football.

We already - for example - don't really practice kickoff and kick return, because of stuff like this ...

 

I’ve actually wondered a lot about this as a youth sports coach where all that I have had to do in terms of training was take a concussion safety class. What if I left a kid in with a minor injury where they said that they were ok but really weren’t?

I had something a few years ago where my daughter was playing in a rec hoops final. The best player on the other team had some sort of breathing issue/panic attack and both her head coach and her mother initially insisted she was fine but the other head coach was finally persuaded to keep her out. If something terrible happened, I bet we all would have been sued.

 

Pathetic. The father sounds like he was driving it. The coach commits his time and he thinks he’s doing it for a paycheck? First off, an assistant junior varsity baseball coach, is he really major that much? $8k?

“You have people just taking the extra $8,000 who don’t know what the hell they’re doing,” Rob Mesar says. “Somebody’s got to be responsible. Nobody is!”

Yeah, your kid is responsible. Does he not have the field sense to know if a ball is coming in? The third baseman setting up? If there’s a doubt, I’m sliding anyway. So he slid wrong, which sucks. But that’s not on the coach.