U S Chamber Exploits A Seven Year Old

It’s time for another outrageous email from the U S Chamber. This one says :

Minnesotans will be shocked by the seven-year-old who got sued. Funny, it has absolutely nothing to do with Minnesota. The incident at the basis of the email and the encompassing video is all about an incident that happened in Vail, Colorado.

Apparently, the seven year old was skiing past another skier and there was some type of collision, with the other skier tearing his rotator cuff. In Colorado there is a statute, Colorado Skier Safety Act, that allows for claims in these types of circumstances. The injured party made a claim for his injuries against the boys homeowners policy. The case settled for $25,000.

It is here that the story gets interesting:

The email seems to be outraged that a seven year old was sued, while at the same time they seem to be clearly taking advantage of the child. Plus, in reality it was the parents who were sued.

The video dramatizes the story that the police came to the door and wanted the young boy to sign the affidavit of services. But, apparently the police came when the boy was there and the father told them to come back. It’s unclear why he didn’t just except the services.

The father claims that the injured person swore at the boy and yelled at the dad for over 20 minuets. But the ski patrol who showed up said that other than being mad about being hurt, there was no indication of this happening.

The parents talk like they really had things at risk and about how they never heard anything until the lawsuit arrived at the door. But, apparently they received a certified letter months before and ignored it. They never told their insurance company at that time and thus, it wasn’t handled the way many cases are.

Clearly, it looks like the parents saw some need to champion their message. So much so that there was a motion to gag the father. Apparently, the injured party was getting hate letters from people. It’s interesting to read the father’s letter on the topic because it seems to differ in many ways from the video and from other accounts of what was going on.

While I think it would be foolish to really guess what happened here, it seems like there was some type of contact and there was an injury. It was up to the injured party to prove the severity and the damages. It doesn’t seem a whole lot different than many cases. Looks to me like someone was exploiting this child and despite the case being settled, they continue to have some need to continue to it.