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While this is a tragic accident, if the restaurant operators had been paying attention to dangerous layout they created, this wouldn't have happened.
Here's a newsflash to every internet perfect-parent out there: 5-year-olds do not behave like adults at a Victorian tea party 100% of the time whether you want them to or not, whether you watch them or not. Yours won't or didn't either no matter how much you insist otherwise. And during those times when they predictably don't, their being crushed to death is not an expected or foreseeable outcome. So yes this restaurant will be sued, and they will deserve to lose every penny they'll be forced to cough up.
You are correct - 5 year olds do not behave like adults, therefore they shouldn't be taken to adult type restaurants.
The minute this child got down from his seat and started wandering around one of the parents should have gotten up out of their chair to go get him. But I see this all the time in public places including nice restaurants. It's like the parents feel once they are out in public, the child is no longer their responsibility.
It is not up to the restaurant to insure it is child proof. That is the parent's responsibility and I'm sure the only people who think the restaurant should be sued are the exact parents I am talking about. "People who think they deserve to lose every penny they will be forced to cough up." If that happens, I hope this and other nice restaurants stop allowing children altogether. It would be a much nicer dining experience for those of us who want to enjoy our meal without being subjected to little kids running around, crying, etc. while the parents sit idly by doing nothing about it.
Pretty sure there isn't a person on CD that hasn't had a nice restaurant meal ruined by bratty kids and the parents who won't control them.
Frozen worker case is also instructive. Hotel fined $12,000 for the death...failure to keep the freezer safe. Apparently the internal release mechanism was not working. That of course would lead to a substantial settlement. Probably override the workmasn compensation laws.
dYou can't screw up and kill people and get away with it. Kid on a balcony would be a danger a parent could foresee. Kid getting crushed by a badly designed booth is not.
You are correct - 5 year olds do not behave like adults, therefore they shouldn't be taken to adult type restaurants.
The minute this child got down from his seat and started wandering around one of the parents should have gotten up out of their chair to go get him. But I see this all the time in public places including nice restaurants. It's like the parents feel once they are out in public, the child is no longer their responsibility.
It is not up to the restaurant to insure it is child proof. That is the parent's responsibility and I'm sure the only people who think the restaurant should be sued are the exact parents I am talking about. "People who think they deserve to lose every penny they will be forced to cough up." If that happens, I hope this and other nice restaurants stop allowing children altogether. It would be a much nicer dining experience for those of us who want to enjoy our meal without being subjected to little kids running around, crying, etc. while the parents sit idly by doing nothing about it.
Pretty sure there isn't a person on CD that hasn't had a nice restaurant meal ruined by bratty kids and the parents who won't control them.
If restaurants are required to provide child-proof environments, I suspect a lot of restaurants will no longer allow children.
Why put up with the noise, mess and potential lawsuits?
Frozen worker case is also instructive. Hotel fined $12,000 for the death...failure to keep the freezer safe. Apparently the internal release mechanism was not working. That of course would lead to a substantial settlement. Probably override the workmasn compensation laws.
dYou can't screw up and kill people and get away with it. Kid on a balcony would be a danger a parent could foresee. Kid getting crushed by a badly designed booth is not.
I'll bet I could foresee that allowing my child to crawl around a moving mechanism was a poor idea.
Seeing as how all deaths have different circumstances involved I won't make a blanket statement regarding every accidental death. In this specific case the child would not be dead if the parents had kept him sitting in his seat in the restaurant.
Read the second article linked to the first (posted) one here-
Horrific incident-I wouldn't wish being crushed to death (head first) on my own worst enemy.
But. I did note incident happened at about 3:30pm (lunch service ended at 2:30pm- they were there for AN HOUR after the restaurant was closing (between meal services?)- personally I know how inconsiderate that feels for the staff, for people to stay late when they are trying to close down...
Kinda does say something about the parents.
I do think that matters.
Seeing as how all deaths have different circumstances involved I won't make a blanket statement regarding every accidental death. In this specific case the child would not be dead if the parents had kept him sitting in his seat in the restaurant.
BINGO! And they should have taken care to do so precisely BECAUSE a child of five wanting to wander IS a perfectly foreseeable occurrence.
Is the accidental death of a child ever the result of anyone else's negligence, or are only parents ever negligent? Is a child wandering away from their parents in a restaurant a foreseeable event or are these parents the only ones who ever let it happen?
Yes, when a company manufactures something that is meant for children but instead harms or kills them: faulty car seats or cribs for example. Even IKEA bears some responsibility for the faulty design of some of their furniture which when climbed on can topple over on a child. Yes, the child shouldn't be climbing on the furniture but the difference is when you are in your own home, you have a certain expectation that your child is relatively safe playing in his bedroom.
Years ago when my kids were 4 & 2 and my niece was also 2, we were out by the pool at the condo complex. The kids were all wearing arm floaties. We got out for lunch and the kids were right next to us. I was chatting with my sister a foot away from the pool. I never heard my oldest fall into the pool. He had taken off his floaties after eating and fell in. Thankfully I happened to turn around and saw him in time to save him from drowning. Now if he had drowned whose fault would it have been? The condo's? The pool designer? The people who made the floaties that were able to be removed by a child? NO! It would have been my fault for not keeping my eye on the kids constantly when out by a pool.
Read the second article linked to the first (posted) one here-
Horrific incident-I wouldn't wish being crushed to death (head first) on my own worst enemy.
But. I did note incident happened at about 3:30pm (lunch service ended at 2:30pm- they were there for AN HOUR after the restaurant was closing (between meal services?)- personally I know how inconsiderate that feels for the staff, for people to stay late when they are trying to close down...
Kinda does say something about the parents.
I do think that matters.
It does.
If meal service ended at 2:30, by 3:30 they were surely done eating.
So why were they sitting there, ignoring their little boy while he used the restaurant as his playground?
You can take children out to eat at fancy places if they are well behaved, not tired or cranky, and you get up as soon as the food is gone. They lose interest when the eating is over.
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