Comments on: Potential bad omens for the defense

By: Breaking: $16.6 M award in “Hold your wee” case

Breaking: $16.6 M award in “Hold your wee” case — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 17:37:11 +0000

[…] to pay $16.6M in the “Hold your wee for a Wii” contest death [Radio Online, earlier here; via Bill Childs, […]

By: Ted Frank

Ted Frank — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:50:09 +0000

I’m just happy they’re not suing the water bottler for failure to warn.

By: Invid

Invid — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:52:56 +0000

Hopefully the jury won’t use all 10 digits….

By: A.W.

A.W. — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 20:24:18 +0000

> reasonable to assume that a radio station won’t have you risk your life for a contest and not even warn you about it

Have you even listened to these morning shows? no, i would never trust the average radio guy with two nickels let alone my life.

Sorry, she should have known better.

And most of the evidence that they were warned should have alerted her, too.

Seriously, take care of yourself. don’t just assume everyone knows something you don’t.

By: Ace of Sevens

Ace of Sevens — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 19:19:42 +0000

The release she signed only was to appear on the radio and releases don’t protect you in cases of negligence, anyway. It’s not clear the contestants were actually listening to the broadcast and her mental capacity may have been impaired by then, anyway. Have you actually heard the recordings, she’s clearly no longer rational by the time she leaves. Besides, it’s reasonable to assume that a radio station won’t have you risk your life for a contest and not even warn you about it.

By: A.W.

A.W. — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:58:30 +0000

spud

Fair enough. and now i read it a little more, they mentioned it repeatedly on the air that there was a possiblity of this happening. and so she knew too. that’s called assumption of risk.

ultimately we have a duty to watch out for ourselves. now i feel awful that this woman died, but i don’t see how you say that the DJ’s were negligent but she wasn’t.

And there is the very real possibility that she signed a release.

By: Ace of Sevens

Ace of Sevens — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:25:22 +0000

Besides that they were warned, since they were running the thing, it was their responsibility to look into its safety. This is business law 101 stuff. (I may have a distorted view of this because my business law 101 professor used to advise radio stations in this capacity.) I think they were lucky to escape manslaughter charges considering the warning, which pushed it from negligence to gross negligence.

By: spudbeach

spudbeach — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:04:24 +0000

Umm — because they were actually warned? A caller identified themselves as a registered nurse and said that this contest could lead to death.

By: A.W.

A.W. — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 12:59:40 +0000

i think that case is ridiculous. i bet only 1 out of 10 people even know it is possible to die this way. so why should we require these dj’s to know? and why should they be expected to know and the victim isn’t? of course in comparitive negligence states you can still lose millions of dollars even if you are only 10% to blame, which seems wrong to me.