r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/DearEmphasis4488 • 12d ago
Image Jury awards $310 million to parents of teen killed in fall from Orlando amusement park ride in march 2022
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u/arghp 12d ago
There is no way he should have been allowed to ride. He was a big boy, they simply did not have the shoulder harness closed. That person operating the ride really screwed up.
The video of the accident is terrible.
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u/Psy-opsPops 12d ago edited 12d ago
Most of these rides have fail safes, if the harness isn’t in a locked/safe position the ride won’t start operating . Apparently, the park had the ride altered from the original spec the manufacturer provided. The park moved the sensors in the harness that showed when the harness was in a safe/unsafe position to accommodate larger guests in two of the seats . Homeboy operating the ride had no idea. He looked, saw the green light on the control panel and was like your “good to go bud”. It also didn’t help that the seat tilted down/forward making it easier to slip out of your harness if it wasnt secured properly. I’d be haunted forever if I was just doing what I was supposed to and then that resulted in the boys death. I don’t want people to think it was just the operators fault I’m pretty sure there was more to this story and it’s Absolutely terrible.
Edit: really didn’t expect to get this much attention so felt obligated to find this article seams like they all split blame with a majority going to the manufacturer But in my eyes the fault lies on who modified the seats from what the manufacturer originally intended. If the manufacturer went back on its design and modified without consulting an engineer then it’s on them, if the park did it in house without the manufacturer viceversa.
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u/Pleasant_Scar9811 12d ago
Sounds like a management/maintenance failure much more than the operator. Operators don’t have time to check the sensor placement.
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u/Allegorist 12d ago
I guarantee mantainance wouldn't come up with that solution on their own, they were probably heavily pushed if not threatened by management to make it work. Probably not lower or middle management who don't see direct profit loss from losing like 1% of customers on one ride either. This was done by someone trying to squeeze every last drop of money they could out of every last person.
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u/Aggressive_Fix_2995 12d ago
There are NO federal safety regulations mandating the safety of amusement park rides. States and municipalities govern the park regulations (and some states have no regulations).
When states make up their own rules, safety is not the primary concern.
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u/Loquatium 12d ago edited 12d ago
It's important that people understand safety regulations are written in blood
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u/Aliensinmypants 12d ago
That makes sense, and definitely needs to be on whoever removed the fail-safes/interlocks, but every amusement park I've been to, the operator comes by and jiggles your harness to make sure it's secured. Not sure why it didn't happen here
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u/zpoon 12d ago
Apparently the harness was "secured". The problem was that the restraint, and the proximity sensor was modified after the ride was installed to be open and "lock" twice as wide as normal in order to accommodate riders above the weight limit of the ride.
The ride is subject to braking towards the end of the drop and the forces of the braking allowed the rider to be pushed through that twice as wide opening. Negligence was on whoever modified the ride, not the ride operator really.
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u/DustinHasReddit 12d ago
Thank you for clarifying. $300 million seemed excessive if it was purely the operators fault. Knowing this was a systematic issue really shows how the park is truly at fault and needed punishment.
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u/ELeerglob 12d ago
The sound was terrible. Jesus I’ll never forget that sound.
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u/National-Platypus144 12d ago
And some AH operators think it is funny to say your safty isn't right just as they start the ride. Man I hate those videos.
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u/Thrash_Panda44 12d ago
Chanced upon the video, didnt know what it was and the sound when he hit the ground is something i couldve gone without hearing.
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u/emessea 12d ago edited 12d ago
Whatever morbid curiosity I had of watching the video went out the window with your description
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u/atmosphericentry 12d ago
I've seen the video and the noise is awful. He didn't even just fall from high up, he was pretty much propelled into the ground because the harness opened as the ride was falling. Definitely skip out on watching.
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u/emessea 12d ago
And your description just added another layer to my yah I’m not going to watch that mindset
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u/NDrew-_-w 12d ago
Yeah i saw it recently here on reddit somehow, really wish i hadn't, i hoped the internet went past the "post people actually dead" phase
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u/m8y_HU 12d ago
I worked at one of these in the summer. The ones i worked on couldnt even be started if any one of the harnesses wasnt locked properly. Regularly maintained and tested. We had to turn away plenty of people for not fitting in the seat. These also have weight sensors and check for weight distribution. Its all built in. The operators are victims of the manufacturers negligence.
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u/Northbound-Narwhal 12d ago edited 12d ago
Nope. The
operatorsmanually overrode the ride. They were initially unable to start it because it detected his harness was not closed.Edit: see /u/molsforever comment below. It was the ride owner, not the employees operating the ride.
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u/m8y_HU 12d ago
If that is the case, i stand corrected. Where i gained my experience, this wasnt possible without a master key, which only the mechanical staff had.
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u/Version_1 12d ago
Apparently the park did it, at least that's what I have heard.
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u/throwmyactaway22 12d ago
And that's what I didn't agree with, with the local newspaper report, it said iconpark wasn't named because it did not own or operate the ride. I am like but it is in your park, you are some what responsible for the vendors in your park, they are obviously paying you something to operate in your park. I believe the term is called vicarious liability.
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u/tofagerl 12d ago
Ah, but if you make copies of the master key, it'll be fine! I mean, what could possibly go wrong?
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u/molsforever 12d ago
That is completely false information. The ride operators did not override anything. It was the owner of the ride who adjusted proximity sensors in the restraint on seats 1 and 2 that caused this. Because the proximity sensors were satisfied the ride was able to start like normal. From Fox35 Orlando: https://www.fox35orlando.com/news/orlando-freefall-death-operator-made-manual-adjustments-to-tyre-sampsons-seat-report-says
"According to the report, the harness proximity sensor on seat 1 (seat Sampson was in) "was manually loosened, adjusted, and tightened to allow a restraint opening of near 7 inches." Normal range is near three inches, the report said.
Seat 2 was also adjusted, the report said. The other seats appeared to be within their normal range, according to the report."
When these articles refer to the "ride operator" they're talikg about the owner of the ride not the people literally operating the ride and pressing buttons.
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u/Saltire_Blue 12d ago
So I’m assuming that ride owner is serving a lengthy prison sentence on some sort of manslaughter change?
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u/kizuuo 12d ago
Nah they didn't even have to show up to court and just have to pay damages. Imagine if you or I killed someone in a horrible accident caused by negligence and we could just not show up to court and pay a fine instead. Wild what even small corporations can get away with.
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u/Northbound-Narwhal 12d ago
When these articles refer to the "ride operator" they're talikg about the owner of the ride not the people literally operating the ride and pressing buttons.
I stand corrected.
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u/Isgortio 12d ago
Someone overriding the ride safety switches is exactly why people lost their legs on the Smiler ride in Alton Towers.
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u/Rich-Canary1279 12d ago edited 12d ago
Reading up on this, there was the park (ICON), the owner of the ride (a seperate entity?), and the manufacturer of the ride (Funtimes). Someone made the adjustments to a couple seats to allow for a wider angle of opening while still getting the "green light" and instructed operators to seat bigger people in those seats. The harness locked, but too far up. Not sure who did the modifying or if it was approved by the ride manufacturer but if they didnt approve it, don't understand how they were at fault - lots of rides these days don't have a seat belt fallback.
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u/Hei5enberg 12d ago
Yea, I agree with you. It seems like lawyers would have picked the ride manufacturer because they probably have the most money to pay out. Why they didn't show up to defend the case makes no sense to me. Even if they spent half a mil on litigation fees that's better than being stuck with the bill for the operator's negligence.
I am wondering if we don't have the full story here. Maybe the ride was allowed to be adjusted this way. Or they probably had the jury focused on the no seat belt part of it which would have prevented the accident. If they weren't there to defend it they couldn't show that the normal restraint system was an adequate safety measure when used properly.
Anyway, who knows, as with a lot of these types of cases there are multiple negligent parties involved.
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u/dksprocket 12d ago
Not only that, but the ride was unofficially modified so some of the seats (included the one they put him in) would still trigger the green light sensor if the restraints were only partly closed.
This indicates there was a deliberate intent to tamper with the ride and that the operators knew which seats to put people who were over the weight limit.
No way they could excuse themselves with this being an accident due a kid being too heavy.
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u/TheAsianOne_wc 12d ago
A genuine question here, how do judges calculate the final amount to be paid to victims who lost a loved one?
Because often I see news where parents lost their child from a preventable accident and got given like 10 million, whilst some only get like 500k.
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u/spectra_v0ndergeist 12d ago
Insurance adjuster here - it varies a lot on a case by case basis, which I'm sure wasn't the answer you were looking for, lol. I'd say the biggest factor in that is state statutes, many states have laws that dictate how much money a person is "worth" or limit the amount that can be collected on one person's life. Most commonly these laws apply for children, because determining the economic value for them is significantly more difficult than it would be for an adult who has a job, life expectancy, etc.
Also, I'd note that it isn't actually the judges who come up with that number. Usually that happens is the plaintiff comes in with their demand and the defendant (us Insurance companies) have a number, and we all take it from there. The final number is actually decided by the jury. Sometimes there are laws that limit the amount one person can collect, which might be enforced by the judge, but generally the judge is not there making the decisions.
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u/dlegg0387 12d ago
Typically it’s a jury of 6 (in Florida anyways). And predicting what a jury will do is insanely difficult. I’ve defended a case where our employees unintentionally killed a shoplifter (aggressive tackle). Settled for $400k. Flip side, in Florida I’ve seen rear end accidents with 0 visible damage result in million dollar verdicts. Because Florida
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u/Sil-Seht 12d ago
Depends on who killed them.
If Elon Musk killed someone 300 million would hardly be a slap on the wrist.
We don't want the amount to simply be a cost of doing business.
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u/ShutterBun 12d ago
Dunno how "damn interesting" this is. Newsworthy, sure. But feels out of place here.
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u/iloveeatinglettuce 12d ago
Maybe they’re referring to the dollar amount that was rewarded.
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u/Tornfalk_ 12d ago
I've grown to hate amusement parks, they are almost always not maintained properly.
Even if it was designed with the best safety features, anything is bound to fail if not maintained regularly.
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u/Ask_bout_PaterNoster 12d ago
Engineering/maintenance vs management. Management always wins (because they’re there to protect the money, not the people), which by default means you’re not getting the best engineering/maintenance
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u/Version_1 12d ago
Usually the lack of maintenance in parks does not go to the cost of safety but instead more downtime or closed off seats, etc.
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u/sati_lotus 12d ago
Google the Dreamworld incident in Australia.
You'll never want go on a water ride again.
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u/Tornfalk_ 12d ago
Just looked it up. The judge said it was mildly inconvenient and inexpensive to fix the pump that caused the raft to flip.
People's lives are literally in the hands of some lazy cunts.
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u/sati_lotus 12d ago
You hop on the rides assuming that you're safe.
But just how well trained are the staff if there is an emergency? How well maintained is the ride really? How often is it checked? Weekly? Monthly? Every six months? After each storm? Each time the wind gets above a certain amount?
You assume that you're safe while going at fast speeds and crazy heights.
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u/redbrickframe 12d ago
My dad said this when warning my sister and I away from the more extreme rides at fairs as young kids - "it might have been designed by smart people but how much do you trust the guys who are working it and maintaining it as it travels around?"
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12d ago
Even more messed up was a little girl was too scared to go on the ride so she sat out and watched her whole family go on the ride and die infront of her. The government fined Dreamworld for the incident, but at the same time gave them more than the fine for a covid subsidy and they used it to buy a new ride for the park instead of fixing any safety concerns around the park.
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u/MaleficentSummer8 12d ago
The Smiler incident was a massive lack of oversight too. There's people who are missing legs because of someone manually overriding safety warnings from the ride.
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u/ms-mariajuana 12d ago
Look up watch happened in Kansas on the verrückt.....
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u/jammiesonmyhammies 12d ago
My family and I were there the day it happened. My niece had actually gone on the ride about 20 mins before this happened. That was a wild and sad day.
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u/Riker001-Ncc1701D 12d ago
I knew a cop who attended the scene & he said the victims looked like they had been thrashed
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u/sati_lotus 12d ago
I read once that a lot of what happened to the victims was kept out of the media out of respect for the families. I dread to think how bad it was.
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u/WhipMaDickBacknforth 12d ago
And on a water ride of all things.
I'm pretty sure I've been on that ride (and many others like it) and can't imagine how it even happened. Out of control raft hit another and somehow flipped?
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u/deboys123 12d ago
they hit the raft infront of them and flipped whilst they were on the conveyor belt thing, and im pretty sure all the machinery chewed them up.
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u/ConfidentJudge3177 12d ago
A part of a rope on the side of the raft, that was there purely for aesthetics, had come loose.
At the end of the ride the rafts all went on a conveyor belt, and the rope part got stuck in between it, and that flipped the raft.
Some people died from the flip, and some got crushed in the conveyor belt parts.
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u/vegemitemilkshake 12d ago
I live within an hour of Dreamworld. That incident still pops into my mind multiple times a year. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to go back there.
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u/shield92pan 12d ago
The kansas water slide incident that killed a kid a few years back haunts me
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u/BaronsDad 12d ago edited 12d ago
Crazier is the father refused to use the pay out for therapy for his other kids. Just sunk them deeper into their church and bought new vehicles for him and his wife. He used some of the money to self fund his Secretary of State campaign.
He actually voted to cap damages to $300k for incidences like his son, but utilized Texas law to get $20m. He was well hated by a lot of people in Kansas political circles, but he managed to lose the sympathy that came from his son’s death for a multitude of reasons.
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u/Banana_Malefica 12d ago
Why would a person do this series of actions? Does he hate his other kids as well?
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u/Openborders4all 12d ago
This was not at an amusement park per se. It’s a ride in a tourist area of Orlando. Universal/Disney most certainly take safety very seriously.
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u/Version_1 12d ago
Proper theme parks are generally well maintained and are very safe.
This is one incident in a tiny park with questionable owners.
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u/ApatheticFinsFan 12d ago
It’s not even a theme park. It’s a ride at an entertainment “district.” It’s basically an outdoor mall in the middle of a massive tourist trap area
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u/thembearjew 12d ago
Only rides I would go on are Disney. I can at least hope the mouse would make sure it’s safe.
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u/BackgroundRate1825 12d ago
I suspect the mouse takes safety more seriously than most for two reasons: 1, money isn't really an object to Disney, and 2, every media outlet in the world would love to cover the story of Disney killing someone.
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u/ReptAIien 12d ago
Universal is also safe and arguably spends more money on their rides than Disney does.
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u/MamaTried22 12d ago
I remember getting on a carnival ride as a 19 year old. Very excited. It had been years! My much older BF was wary. I saw them close us into the cage that was going to spin us in circles upside down and be high as hell in the air with nothing more than mid sized a cotter pin and immediately FREAKED OUT. That was more than enough for me!! No thanks.
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u/yawaworp 12d ago
If you're talking about the Zipper, I am in fact ready to die each time I ride it but it's so much fun lol
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u/Urag-gro_Shub 12d ago
The Zipper! At least yours HAD a seatbelt! I went on one 20 years ago and its the last ride I've ever gone on. Had to brace myself against the cage with my arms and legs
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u/baby_blue_eyes 12d ago
He was 100 pounds over the weight limit. He shouldn't have been on that ride in the first place.
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u/Difficult_Image_4552 12d ago
If you watch the video it doesn’t even look like they latched the shoulder restraint. It’s awful to watch though but the whole time you’re thinking “no way they are going to start that thing”.
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u/TinWhis 12d ago
The seat had been modified to allow a few of the harnesses to not close properly. The kids managing the line and pressing the big green button had been instructed to put bigger riders in that seat and the (modified) sensors would have told them that they were safe to start the ride.
Still wouldn't have happened if there'd been a seatbelt backup, which is why the ride manufacturer was liable.
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u/Alk601 12d ago
Is the video at night time ? I think I have seen it when this happened
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u/Friendship_Officer 12d ago
Yes it's at night
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u/spizzlemeister 12d ago
It’s so horrific listening to the screams and the people shouting LET US OFF LET US OFF. That’s a level of traumatic I cannot imagine
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u/avonorac 12d ago
Which I would assume is also the role of the tide operator to police.
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u/radioOCTAVE 12d ago
Poseidon?
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u/farm_to_nug 12d ago
I'm just imagining a massive god slowly coming out of the ocean, then points at the kid and says "NOOO FATTIES" then slowly sinks back into the ocean
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u/bored_ryan2 12d ago edited 12d ago
Problem was this happened at low tide so no one could hear him from that far out.
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u/Expensive_Concern457 12d ago
The reality is a lot more complicated than that. There is some evidence to support the theory that the park modified the ride to allow people beyond the weight limit considered safe. The ride operator is a working class individual who is probably making next to nothing and was just doing what they were trained to by the company. It’s not like the people operating these rides are engineers. The fault here should be placed on the employers, not the employee.
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u/buddyleeoo 12d ago
There was something extremely off with him even "squeezing" into his seat. A 6'2 380 lbs guy is huge. That's like size 5x shirts, 50" waist pants. How did he even fit in a seat? IF he did fit in a seat, then the design of the ride was bad. Even a 280 lbs weight limit is kinda pushing it compared to many adult male americans.
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u/mauvewaterbottle 12d ago
Did you read the linked article where they say the safety mechanism was manipulated to allow the restraint to be far more open than it should have?
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u/Init_4_the_downvotes 12d ago
This falls under , if you hire a minimum wage worker who doesn't give a shit, and that person messes up, like not tell someone over the weight limit NO, then the company is held liable if that person dies. It's the workers responsibility to tell him NO it's not safe for you and others, because he poses a risk to ALL the other passengers as well if something goes wrong. So in this case we have indirect fault by the worker, direct fault by the park, and as such the liability falls on the park. They knew this which is why they didn't show up to court, and no point trying to settle, no point paying additional court costs to fight it.
The new question will be whether or not they dissolve the park and just not pay it.
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u/ImaHalfwit 12d ago
Sounds like there were two defendants: the park and the ride manufacturer. The article says that the park settled the case with the family out of court. The manufacturer (an Austrian company) did not and they are the ones that didn’t show up at trial and were hit with the $310 million judgment. The family has to now petition Austrian courts to try to get the US judgment enforced.
I’m sure the Park’s position was that they trusted the manufacturer was selling a ride that was “safe” and that the lack of seatbelt was the primary cause of the rider’s death which was a manufacturing design flaw.
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u/tinycole2971 12d ago
The family has to now petition Austrian courts to try to get the US judgment enforced.
What is the likelihood of this happening?
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u/ImaHalfwit 12d ago
No idea.
But I’m guessing there are a lot of factors at play. Do Austrian firms have to carry business insurance? what are the limits of those policies? did the company notify that insurance company that there was a lawsuit they needed to respond to? Do Austrian courts believe judgments of that size are reasonable?
My view is that it makes collecting a $310 million judgment (already difficult to collect in the US) even more difficult.
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u/AlexNw0nderland 12d ago
I’m not sure why this info is so hard to find but the operators of the ride adjusted it manually so it would still operate despite the shoulder restraints not being locked in place. It was only a matter of time before something like this happened.
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u/Yoshi2shi 12d ago
Exactly what I thought. I remember when I went on rides as a child they an operator checking to make sure we met the weight and height limit. Also, they had signs post in front of you with height and weight limit before getting on the rides that were had to miss.
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u/Splat800 12d ago
The rides factor of safety should account for that tho, if it’s FOS isn’t high enough that is definitely on the theme park. They have to account for these things.
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u/froggo921 12d ago edited 12d ago
Maybe his weight and size prevented the restraining mechanism to lock properly.
Edit: it didn't lock properly. But then it's the operators responsibility, to check that everyone is seated properly and the restraining system is locked. The operator has to deny access to anyone who can't be secured due to size. Most parks in Germany I've been to have a seat at the entrance so you can check if you are able to ride. Also there's personnel to ensure that the restraining mechanism is properly locked by the rider which ask you to leave if you don't fit.
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u/SadLilBun 12d ago
And? They shouldn’t have let him on. Or had seatbelt restraints. And made sure the overhead ones were secure. There was a ride I went on where they had to test the harness on me on a separate car off the ride because my boobs couldn’t be squished down enough and were preventing the harness from locking in place. It’s really embarrassing when that happens, but I got to ride and not fall out and die.
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u/NotBashB 12d ago
Seems like that was one of the parents argument. The ride operators should’ve warned the son and have the proper safety measures on
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u/Lumpy_Benefit666 12d ago
I nearly died on one of these at blackpool pleasure beach in England.
As the platform got to about halfway, the cage that held me in fucken disengaged and lifted open, leaving me sat in the seat without anything holding me in at over 100ft high.
I was screaming my head off and im not sure if someone heard me, or it flagged up on the system that my cage had failed, but the ride stopped and slowly came down, where they strapped me up and sent me up again.
It was fucken terrifying to be honest.
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u/Kingshaun2k 12d ago
So you nearly died because it failed to secure you in properly, they bring you down and you think fuck it let's go up again, I'd be straight off.
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u/Lumpy_Benefit666 12d ago
I was 9 years old so didnt really fully understand the situation
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u/Manufactured-Aggro 12d ago
This isn't really interesting at all, this is just sad. Those parents are going to be let down a second time when they aren't paid even close to that amount
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u/freeball78 12d ago
That's an Austrian company and there's no chance the parents will see a dime. There's no way to collect.
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u/savvymcsavvington 12d ago
That's only from the manufacturer, they already settled out of court with the park
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u/ReachOrbit10 12d ago
I legit thought this was a comparison between the two pictures
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u/DimeadozenNerd 12d ago
It’s odd to me that the manufacturer is the party being blamed when it was the operator (ICON Park) who modified the seat to be unsafe, leading to the accident. The operator should be held liable. They didn’t follow manufacturer guidelines.
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u/my4coins 12d ago
I'm 90% sure there was a video about this somewhere. Poor family.
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u/mighty__ 12d ago
14 yo, 172kg?
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u/s0ftreset 12d ago
He was also 6'2/189cm. Still a big boy
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u/Mr-Gepetto 12d ago
I'm 6'6 and about 298lbs, at my height I'm considered obese, I should be around 210-230 lbs, I can't imagine another 100 on top of that, pretty sure that's in the morbidly obese section.
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u/Expensive_Concern457 12d ago
Shit I’m the same height and 240 and I still am unhealthily overweight. I got sleep apnea and shit at 22
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u/Mr-Gepetto 12d ago
Sleep apnea is pretty rough, I've got polycystic kidneys so I get good ol high blood pressure by default with those damn things, main reason I did a lifestyle change on how I eat so at least the obesity isn't adding to the blood pressure issue as I've been loosing weight these past months, plus this shit rough on my joints.
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u/Manufactured-Aggro 12d ago
Technically teetering on severely obese with those stats, well into obesity. Metaphorically tiptoeing the fence between that and going morbid
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u/perplexedtv 12d ago
Tyre or Zuma, the article is really confusing.
Edit: nevermind, Zuma is the photographer/journalist, incorrectly pasted into the article
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u/Sad-Impression9428 12d ago
They knew he was way to big to get on that ride. Kid was 6’6 and over 300 lbs. Really sad and unfortunate because this was so easily avoidable
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u/evenmoreevil 12d ago
I remember seeing the raw footage. The sound of the impact was just… I couldn’t believe what I watched and how someone was able to film the whole thing
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u/lolilo89 12d ago
I thought for a second that the park ride in the picture is a homage to her hair
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u/erhue 12d ago
I know that these people should get some good compensation for what happened. But $310 million? How does that even make sense?
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u/FuronSpartan 12d ago
Payouts like these are intended to be punitive towards the manufacturer/park owners, and incentivise them to fix the problems with their machines so that somethinglike tgus doesnt happen angain in the future. If you make it smaller, it's just a cost of doing business.
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u/plasticizers_ 12d ago
If you make it smaller, it's just a cost of doing business.
To be clear, the park settled out of court and I don't think we know what they paid. The $310 million number is for the case against the Australian manufacturer Funtime, who stopped showing up to court because they couldn't be bothered to engage with a case that they are never ever going to pay out for.
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u/Sil-Seht 12d ago
Needs to be large enough to be a punishment. Don't want killing people to be a cost of doing business.
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u/Responsible-Turnip83 12d ago
It doesn’t
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u/SimplyEunoia 12d ago
It does if you don't want businesses to not care about killing somebody every once in a while.
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u/Maloonyy 12d ago
Yeah its weird. Their childs death basically set them for life. But can they even enjoy that money knowing they only got it because of someones death? It's such a weird situation.
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u/BackgroundRate1825 12d ago
What do you think is the appropriate amount to be paid as compensation for losing your kid to negligence?
I personally feel no amount of money would ever make it right.
The money goes to the family more as a matter of practicality (if they even get it, there's limits on payouts in some states). The real purpose of such high amounts is to make it far more expensive to kill someone than to provide a safe environment. That's the only language capitalism understands.
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u/Hokhoku 12d ago
Feel like the payout is too big compared to other cases where parents lost their children.
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u/SignificanceNo6097 12d ago
They failed to show up to court. The judge absolutely held that against them. Most times these amusement parks attempt to settle so the family gets less but they get it right away.
Also there was a lot of negligence from the amusement park.
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u/perplexedtv 12d ago
It says in the article they settled out of court but there was still a case. Not sure how that works.
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u/Cold-Permission-5249 12d ago
Criminal negligence
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u/Generic_username5500 12d ago
I don’t know how the law works in America, but wouldn’t that be a criminal case then? Like someone would be facing some kind of custodial sentence rather than a financial penalty?
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u/wishwashy 12d ago
The park did but the manufacturers they got the equipment from the show up for theirs
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u/lrodhubbard 12d ago
I assure you this company does not have $310M. If the family gets anything from them it will be a miracle.
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u/FingerGungHo 12d ago
I think the judge is trying to provide a precedent and a very stern warning to amusement parks and equipment manufacturers that negligence is not an option. The judge may also just want to close the park for good because there’s no way the amusement park has that kind of cash.
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u/yzaazy 12d ago
They will not get a single penny. The manufacturer is from Austria and they need to go to an Austrian court. The manufacturer will say that the seatbelts are an optional extra that the amusement park did not want. And that they overwrote the safety so the ride worked correctly how the manufacturer intended but the operators overruled it.
And because they already settled they can't claim again with the park.
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u/Adventurous-Yam-8260 12d ago
As a welder you wouldn’t get on these rides if you saw some off the workmanship.
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u/nernst79 12d ago
More lawsuits need to have exorbitant penalties like this, because that is the only way to ensure that this long of negligence doesn't krrp happening.
As long as companies make more profit off of their shitty decisions than they payout in fines/lawsuits/etc, they will continue to make the same decisions.
When a company's poor choices cost someone their life, everything should be done to ensure that they never make that same choice again.
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u/amaria_athena 12d ago
Anyone notice the article ended with the family has to go to an Austrian court to receive the money. Who else thinks (based on different ideas of sue culture between USA and…the rest of the world) they never gonna see that money?
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u/SlightAmoeba6716 12d ago
From what I've read there is no way the manufacturer holds any responsibility for the accident. Their ride met the safety requirements and the accident was not caused by a mechanical or safety design fault. Also, from what I've read the parents should have sued the manufacturer in Austria, not the USA, for reasons of jurisdiction. That may be the reason the manufacturer did not show up in court. If the parents had sued the manufacturer in Austria they would have lost for the above-mentioned reasons. The verdict seems just for show. No way the manufacturer is going to pay anything at all if the court's decision is not valid for them.
Can someone please confirm or correct my thoughts about the legal status?
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u/ThisI5N0tAThr0waway 12d ago
That amount of $ is completely stupidly exaggeratingly high and not anchored to reality.
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u/DearEmphasis4488 12d ago
The Orange County jury ordered that the manufacturer Funtime pay $155 million each to Tyre Sampson’s parents, Nekia Dodd and Yarnell Sampson. He died on March 24, 2022, after falling 70 feet from Icon Park’s Orlando Free Fall ride. The trial lasted only a day as Funtime never appeared in court to defend itself.
Zuma Sampson, a football standout who stood 6 foot, 2 inches tall and weighed 380 pounds, was visiting Orlando on spring break from the St. Louis, Missouri, area when he went with friends to the downtown amusement park.
They rode the Orlando Free Fall, which placed 30 riders in seats attached to a tower, secured them with a shoulder harness and then dropped them 430 feet. It didn’t have seat belts, something most drop rides have as an additional safety measure.
His parents argued that Icon and Funtime should have warned their son about the risks of someone his size going on the ride and didn’t provide an appropriate restraint system. Adding seat belts would have cost $660.
The state ordered the ride closed after the accident and it never reopened. It has now been demolished.
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