Loft Bed Verdict Reversed
No matter how many times I read this, it still says that a New Jersey appellate court reversed a judgment awarding $179,001 to a college senior for failing to warn him of the dangers of falling out of a loft bed. This means that a jury awarded a college senior $179,001 because he wasn't warned that it might hurt if he fell out of bed. That's about twice the cost of my legal education. Because he fell out of bed. He wasn't even injured, as the above commentary notes he went back to bed after having fallen.
But despite what that quote might suggest about him, our plaintiff was capable of learning from his mistake. According to the opinion, “Plaintiff resumed sleeping in the loft bed, but subsequently positioned himself ‘all the way against the wall,’ as far as possible from the open edge of the bed, because he ‘didn’t want to fall off the bed again.’ ”
But the damage had been done. $179,001 worth.
Tragically, “There were no warning labels on the bed, and it had never ‘cross[ed his] mind’ or ‘occurred to’ plaintiff that he could fall or that the bed was dangerous in any way. He testified that had he seen a warning, he would have been ‘aware of the hazard that was present’ and slept closer to the wall, as he had done after the accident.” Honest. Says so right in the opinion.
And he had an expert, George Widas, who testified that industry standards in the bed-making industry require that the manufacturer affix a warning “that says make sure that you protect yourself from this fall hazard.” According to Widas, the warning label should have had “black letters on an orange background” and included a warning that both identified the hazard and explained how to avoid it.
So the label should have said - in Day-Glo green letters on a phosphorescent-pink background - “THIS IS A BED. USE ONLY WHILE AWAKE.” Or perhaps “IF YOUR IQ IS NOT THIS TALL, YOU CANNOT RIDE ON THIS BED.” Or how about an arrow pointing downward, with the legend “FALLING IN THIS DIRECTION COULD BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH. FALL ONLY UPWARD OR TO THE SIDE.”
The poor CEO of the bed company, who probably felt like he’d wandered into a Kafka novel, testified that federal regulations governing warnings on such beds expressly “exempted colleges and universities and military." Nonetheless, the jury, confronted with only a cause of action for failure to warn and presumably more familiar with the intellectual capacities of college students in the state than I am, found that such students could not be expected to figure out the whole bed-floor-down-owee thing and awarded the plaintiff “three trash bags fulla twenties and four tokens for the turnpike.”
Go read the whole thing. It's really quite amusing. I'm still reading the opinion. I'll report back if it sheds any light on why this kid didn't get laughed out of court in the first place.
UPDATE: It appears the kid did fall on his head and dislocate his shoulder, and required pain medication and a sling. But he wasn't badly enough injured not to be able to climb up to the bed and resume sleeping in it.
But despite what that quote might suggest about him, our plaintiff was capable of learning from his mistake. According to the opinion, “Plaintiff resumed sleeping in the loft bed, but subsequently positioned himself ‘all the way against the wall,’ as far as possible from the open edge of the bed, because he ‘didn’t want to fall off the bed again.’ ”
But the damage had been done. $179,001 worth.
Tragically, “There were no warning labels on the bed, and it had never ‘cross[ed his] mind’ or ‘occurred to’ plaintiff that he could fall or that the bed was dangerous in any way. He testified that had he seen a warning, he would have been ‘aware of the hazard that was present’ and slept closer to the wall, as he had done after the accident.” Honest. Says so right in the opinion.
And he had an expert, George Widas, who testified that industry standards in the bed-making industry require that the manufacturer affix a warning “that says make sure that you protect yourself from this fall hazard.” According to Widas, the warning label should have had “black letters on an orange background” and included a warning that both identified the hazard and explained how to avoid it.
So the label should have said - in Day-Glo green letters on a phosphorescent-pink background - “THIS IS A BED. USE ONLY WHILE AWAKE.” Or perhaps “IF YOUR IQ IS NOT THIS TALL, YOU CANNOT RIDE ON THIS BED.” Or how about an arrow pointing downward, with the legend “FALLING IN THIS DIRECTION COULD BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH. FALL ONLY UPWARD OR TO THE SIDE.”
The poor CEO of the bed company, who probably felt like he’d wandered into a Kafka novel, testified that federal regulations governing warnings on such beds expressly “exempted colleges and universities and military." Nonetheless, the jury, confronted with only a cause of action for failure to warn and presumably more familiar with the intellectual capacities of college students in the state than I am, found that such students could not be expected to figure out the whole bed-floor-down-owee thing and awarded the plaintiff “three trash bags fulla twenties and four tokens for the turnpike.”
Go read the whole thing. It's really quite amusing. I'm still reading the opinion. I'll report back if it sheds any light on why this kid didn't get laughed out of court in the first place.
UPDATE: It appears the kid did fall on his head and dislocate his shoulder, and required pain medication and a sling. But he wasn't badly enough injured not to be able to climb up to the bed and resume sleeping in it.