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Except they couldn't do that because they had no idea this kind of thing was present.
Why not? Children should be familiar with the concepts of keeping their feet on the floor and their hands to themselves whenever they are in public places other than those that are specifically set up for climbing, exploring and playing. If they can't handle that, than they have to stay home until they can.
The community center withheld extremely relevant information from the parents. You can't say the parents are to blame for things they could not possibly anticipate. The nature of the surroundings dictates the level of supervision that is appropriate.
And the community center knows that no one expects the surroundings to include a piece of artwork worth $132,000 that is top-heavy, super-fragile, and not even protected by a door to the space it is in. Legally, they have a duty to warn guests of a condition like this.
They had to walk through the gallery to get to the room they were in, the parents saw and walked through the room. A reasonable person knows that climbing on a statue can damage it. A reasonable person knows that sometimes 5 year old boys will treat public areas like playgrounds and should be supervised. These children were unsupervised.
Have you seen the video? The mother was not in the gallery room for several minutes. That is negligent.
She won't have to settle for anything. Her homeowners insurance company, who really are the subject matter experts, will negotiate that.
It may have been linked elsewhere. I'm not an art expert by any means, so I can't find a link for it. Where do you find the information that he's sold six figure pieces before?
I was taught the same thing. I was also taught to lock my bike at the bike rack when I got to school.
All of this is a lot of hysteria over what really amounts to her deductible on her homeowners policy.
If it was a $12,000 piece she wouldn't be getting news coverage, and she'd still call State Farm, and State Farm would argue with The Hartford (or whoever) about whether it was worth $9,000 or $12,000.
Furthermore, State Farm would know what their legal liability was under Kansas' state law, and would probably have a pretty good idea as to how much responsibility they shoulder for the negligence of the Mom and Kid, and how much blame should be shouldered by the Civic Center for having the piece in an area near where there's a wedding, and kids, and presumably liquor being served, etc...
This really is a business transaction, nothing more, nothing less. All this discussion about the wisdom of where the piece was, where the Mom was, was she or wasn't she negligent, throws a lot of emotion into it, that doesn't belong there.
The Kid yanked down a statue by hanging off it like it was the monkey bars and broke it.
Whether or not the Civic Center is partly responsible is also a business discussion among the insurers.
Should their insurer end up eating a large portion of the claim, you can guarantee that it will be addressed either at renewal time, or reflected in a rate increase, or even a cancellation of the policy.
Ultimately, its no more exciting than Allstate and USAA arguing about what driver is responsible for a collision.
Thanks for such a good post! Makes perfect sense!!
The community center withheld extremely relevant information from the parents. You can't say the parents are to blame for things they could not possibly anticipate. The nature of the surroundings dictates the level of supervision that is appropriate.
The nature of the surroundings dictates the type of behavior that is appropriate.
A sitting room anywhere or a gallery inside a community center (this room looks to be both) obviously does not call for running around, climbing on furniture or other objects in the room. A 5 year old should be old enough to understand that and, if they are not at that point, or else the standing rules dictate it, they are supposed to be under constant, direct supervision by the parents or another adult. The boy in this case isn't at that point yet and, either way, the parents failed to properly supervise him as per the rules of the community center.
I agree, the boys are clearly running around, climbing the exhibit, and the parents are not even in the same room.
Parents get part, if not most, of the blame here. The item was up against a wall, it took the child hanging on it to pull it over, and the children were playing as if at a playground. If the children had been supervised, this would not have happened.
In this video, he climbs on and grabs the statue twice. There is another video where he climbed on it and his dad (or another adult) gets him to get off the statue. So we have the kid grabbing and climbing on the statue at least THREE different times.
I know...right? I had tons of kids at my wedding because we had kids...so we had a kid-friendly wedding. I have never been invited to a kid-free wedding or reception. They are part of the family and a wedding is a family event. Some don't invite kids, and that's fine for them. But it is absurd to think children don't belong at a wedding at all. Ring bearer? Flower girl?
1) The gallery should have provided better protection for a piece of that value.
2) The parents should have better prepped their kid before entering the building, "It's important that you just look and not touch."
Solution: each party pays half.
Or let the gallery's insurance deal with it, which is what they're paid to do.
They weren't at a gallery, it was a community center where the family was attending a wedding reception. I guess you have to go through the art section to get in and out. Yes, she probably should have said that, but again I would never dream any piece of art in a community center would be expensive, and I would expect more protection for it than a gallery given the number of kids in and out of a community center every day.
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