Don’t worry Wilson, I’ll do all the suing. You just hang on.
Veteran umpire Ed Hickox doesn’t think so. And he’s suing over it. On April 18, 2009, Hickox was working the plate in the third-ever game at the new Yankee Stadium when a foul tip struck him hard in the mask. He left the game two innings later, and wound up sitting out the rest of the season with a concussion and left ear injury. He returned to duty in 2010, but now, three years after the incident, he’s filed a lawsuit in State Supreme Court in New York against Wilson Sporting Goods, the manufacturer of the mask, along with Wilson’s parent company, Amer Sports Corporation of Finland.
...In his complaint, filed by personal injury lawyers Howard Richman of Stony Point, N.Y., and Patrick Regan of Washington, D.C., Hickox accused Wilson Sporting Goods of manufacturing a faulty mask that “cracked into pieces upon impact and didn’t protect an umpire in the way it is reportedly designed to do.” In addition to claims of a concussion and left ear injury, Hickox is asserting “mental anguish,” saying he has had several surgeries and has “ongoing medical expenses.” His wife Lisa Hickox is also a plaintiff, alleging that she’s been forced to spend “considerable time caring for and assisting her husband,” according to the suit.
...Something else that could work in the defendant’s favor: This isn’t the first time that Hickox, one of the umpires that lost his job during a failed mass-resignation strategy during a labor dispute in 1999 who waited six years to be reinstated, has sued Wilson Sporting Goods. Two years ago, he won $775,000 from the company on a similar foul ball incident that occurred in 2005. There are no other known cases of Major League umpires suing equipment manufacturers – just two incidents from the same umpire (neither MLB, which declined comment, or Wilson Sporting Goods, which didn’t return a call, confirmed this for sure). Heitner figures the lack any legal incidents from other umpires could work in Wilson’s favor, strengthening the company’s likely argument that masks aren’t designed to prevent any and all injuries, but to work under normal circumstances.
Repoz
Posted: April 19, 2012 at 04:19 PM |
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1. dirkSeems a bit suspicious that it happened to the same guy twice, and no one else. IIRC, $775,000 was well above what many Primates would take for a voluntary shot to the groin. Wilson might want to investigate thoroughly.
I believe the statute of limitations in New York is 3 years for personal injury claims, and 3 years - sometimes 4, depending on the action - for products liability claims.
In this case, Hickox was injured April 18, 2009, and his attorneys appear to have filed on April 13th.
So it sounds like he wants both arguments -- the mask shouldn't shatter, preventing injuries from a broken mask but leaving him with a concussion, OR, the mask should shatter and prevent a concussion, but possibly cause injury from the shattered mask.
Again, not defending Hickox necessarily, but I think that depends on whether it really did "shatter." Shattering would (to me) imply that it blew apart into pieces -- in which case it may not have absorbed that much of the force. (To take it to an extreme, imagine a mask made of spun sugar or something.)
1. Regarding strict liability: The mask was not in a defective condition when it left the defendants' hands, either by virtue of a design defect or a manufacturing defect; Hickox was not using the product properly (e.g., he was using it for a longer lifespan than intended); even if there was a defect, Hickox should have discovered the defect through the exercise of reasonable care.
2. Regarding negligence: The defendants weren't negligent (let alone grossly negligent) and didn't breach their duty of care; they acted reasonably in designing, testing, manufacturing, and inspecting the mask. They met their duty to warn. Hickox assumed the risk.
2. Regarding breach of warranty: The defendants did not commit a breach of warranty, either express (such as representations contained in advertising/labeling) or implied (merchantability/fitness for a particular purpose).
In the previous suit, it was a different way that the mask failed. Essentially, a foul ball hit the throat guard of his mask, and the impact dislodged the metal frame and pushed it into Hickox's ear canal.
In this case, when the foul ball struck his mask, the mask (as alleged in the complaint) "cracked severely and was fractured into separate pieces," causing a concussion, injuries to his left ear, and a closed head injury.
In any event, I don't think that Hickox is trying to have it both ways. He wants the mask to absorb the blow without shattering.
As all we have so far is his complaint, which alleges his version of the facts and his legal theories for recovery, we can say nothing about whether the defendants should be held liable and whether Hickox should prevail. We don't know whether the mask really was defective, whether Hickox was not using it properly (e.g., not buckling it properly), whether there was something wrong with the mask that happened _after_ it left the defendants' hands (e.g., perhaps the mask was hit by a bat, or stepped on, or already cracked by a foul ball and Hickox should have replaced it, etc.).
It does seem that Hickox and his wife are starting to form a habit of filing these lawsuits. Their previous one was against the same defendants.
dont go there.
I wonder how many other times he and his wife have been plaintiffs.
I don't recall what my bid was - I think/hope I was in 6 figures.
Was this a hockey style mask? I think that them being safer is a myth.
This may well be true. I'm not an engineer but it looks to me, watching baseball on TV, that the hockey style masks transfer the energy from foul balls more or less directly to the wearer's head, where it then gets absorbed by the skull. On the other hand, the traditional style masks often tend to fly off the wearer's head if struck hard enough, and this would allow the kinetic energy to dissipate and not transfer to the skull. As I said I'm not an engineer and probably didn't explain this very well but it makes sense to me that the hockey style masks might not be as safe, in some cases, as the traditional wire masks. As someone who caught for a couple of years in high school (this was 40+ years ago) I can tell you that a foul ball off the mask will get your attention.
Of course.
would it make you feel better if he really truly believed the product was a piece of crap and he used it anyways?
See, this is were they lose if you ask me. The face mask is there specifically to protect the head from being struck by baseballs. THat's its purpose, so I can't see it passing the warranty of fitness. I'd also be surprised if there wasn't some expressed warranty somewhere in the advertising showing the mask shrugging off a foul tip, although without a claim that the mask would shrug off all foul tips that's be a hard road.
As for strict liability, I think you left out the more likely argument. I'd be arguing that the flaw was in the design and not the manufacture of that particular unit. Did you see the injury? The mask exploded. It just didn't look like something that was designed to take the kind of impact it took.
Finally, were are you seeing in the law that a strict liability claim can be rebutted by a showing that reasonable care would have turned up the defect? The second restatement of Torts states:
Are you getting that from case law? I'm just curious, not necessarily doubting you.
edit: actually, i've found some stuff that says that manufacturers are not relieved of due care even when the defect is open and notorious, but rather that assumption of the risk is a jury question. Is that what you meant?
Nope. At the speed a ball hits the mask all the force is transferred to the head almost immediately with the old masks, so by the time it spins off the damage is done, the mask coming off is just newtons law playing out after the fact. In contrast, the hockey style masks distribute the energy much more efficiently across the entire head, instead of just the forehead like the old masks due. Also, a main benefit of the hockey mask is ear protection.
And just for fun. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goijPy1lo7Q
Not really. Almost all safety equipment is intended to reduce a)risk, and b)severity of injuries, not completely eliminate it. If he had taken a 100mph ball straight to the face, he would most likely be dead. Can anybody who was injured/killed in a car accident sue the manufacturer because the airbags, seatbelts, and other assorted safety features didn't protect them adequately? Can every football player sue a helmet manufacturer whenever he suffers a concussion? The fact that an injury occurred is not in itself evidence that a product was faulty.
Yeah, but football helmets don't catastrophically fail when the player gets his concussion. I'm not arguing that legally Hickox should be able to recover, I'm arguing that if I show a jury a mask that's broken in two then you're going to have a very difficult time convincing them that the helmet did its job.
Not quite true. The two things you really care about in this situation are force and impulse (the total change in momentum caused by the collision). Force because that's what actually causes damage, and impulse because the effect of the collision is to change the ball's momentum -- which means that the momentum has to be transferred somewhere else.
If a ball hits a mask and bounces away, then the mask (and ultimately the head) has to absorb the missing momentum. Since impulse = force * time, you want to either minimize the total momentum transfer (by making the mask streamlined, so that the ball deflects rather than bouncing backwards) or minimize the force exerted on the head by making the collision take longer (putting lots of padding on the mask).
In a Stupid Human Trick sort of way, I suppose.
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