freeofgreed
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http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/aunt-sues-nephew-12-breaking-wrist-greeting-article-1.2394889
Upper East Side aunt sues 12-year-old nephew for $127G after breaking her wrist while leaping to greet her at birthday party
Pretty gross story. I could never sue a member of my family especially one so young over an accident. Seems extremely petty on the part of the aunt.
EDIT: post from mre elaborating. Maybe the aunt isn't such a scumbag...
Upper East Side aunt sues 12-year-old nephew for $127G after breaking her wrist while leaping to greet her at birthday party
A human resources manager from Manhattan is suing her nephew over a leaping greeting from the then-8-year-old that left her with a broken wrist, according to reports.
Jennifer Connell, 54, believes little Sean Tarala, now 12, should have known better than to jump into her arms as a means of welcoming her to his birthday party in 2011
Connell, of E. 73rd St. on the Upper East Side, is seeking $127,000 in damages for suffering a broken wrist when the two fell to the ground in the rough reception, according to the site.
And if walking up stairs with an injured wrist wasn’t difficult enough, the after-effects on Connell’s social life have been disastrous.
“I was at a party recently and it was difficult to hold my hors d’oeuvres plate,” she added.
The minor child is the only defendant in the case.
Sean was outside playing with a brand new bike he had received for his birthday. The excited boy dropped his new set of wheels and ran toward his aunt to greet her, shouting, “Auntie Jen, Auntie Jen.”
“All of a sudden he was there in the air, I had to catch him and we tumbled onto the ground,” Connell testified, according to ctpost.com. “I remember him shouting, ‘Auntie Jen I love you,’ and there he was flying at me.”
Although hurt, Connell said, she didn’t tell her nephew the extent of her injuries.
“It was his birthday party and I didn’t want to upset him,” she told the jury.
Sean, whose mother died last year, appeared confused as he sat with his father, Michael Tarala, in court Friday, according to ctpost.
Pretty gross story. I could never sue a member of my family especially one so young over an accident. Seems extremely petty on the part of the aunt.
EDIT: post from mre elaborating. Maybe the aunt isn't such a scumbag...
The initial accident happened on March 18, 2011. The statute of limitations for negligence in Connecticut is 2 years, so the lawsuit would have been filed prior to March 19, 2013, well before the mother's death in 2014. It just takes a long time for cases to go from filing to trial, which seems to be where this is at given all of the in-court testimony and party appearances.
The lawsuit may be filed against the nephew, but it's how this would have to be filed in order to get the parents' home owner's insurance to pay for the aunt's damages, including medical expenses. The $127k figure includes (1) medical bills (either out of pocket or amounts that will need to be paid back to the aunt's own insurer), as well as (2) pain and suffering (which she did a great job of reducing with her hors d’oeuvres comment) and, possibly, (3) lost wages.
And for those of you running down the language used by her attorney:
“The injuries, losses and harms to the plaintiff were caused by the negligence and carelessness of the minor defendant in that a reasonable eight year old under those circumstances would know or should have known that a forceful greeting such as the one delivered by the defendant to the plaintiff could cause the harms and losses suffered by the plaintiff,” the lawsuit claims.
That's just the magic language that checks all of the boxes in a lawsuit with a negligence claim. It's the legal standard for negligence, and while the complaint doesn't have to use those words exactly, it's helpful to couch your claim in words developed by the courts so that the judge can easily rule in your favor if the other side files a motion to dismiss on the basis that your complaint failed to adequately state a claim.