Parents Sue Zoo - For or Against?

I think the net that's there luls parents into a false sense of security, because it looks like it could catch a child (at least to people who are not all that familiar with physics, which would be most people). The news report said the kid just bounced straight out of the net and into the enclosure below, but I'm pretty sure when his mother raised him onto the ledge, that she believed the net would catch him if he fell.

The opposite of this effect is on top of Blackpool Tower, there's a section of the floor that is clear perspex, you can see all the way down to the street below, and it's so high the cars look like insects. It's over a metre thick so just as safe to walk on as any other part of the floor... It's part of the attraction... are you brave enough to walk across it? It's hard, because your natural instinct tells you NO F***ING WAY!!! because millions of years of evolution have programmed you to not step where you can see a huge drop to ground far below. So you have to engage your frontal lobes to override that deep-seated instinct, and many people cannot actually walk across that perspex. (me, I not only walked across it I jumped in the middle of it) --- so going back to the zoo.... if there was nothing but a sheer drop beyond that ledge, I don't think parents would have put their kid to sit on it, but the safety net took that natural fear instinct away, making it look much safer than it really was.

I still don't think that it's the zoo's fault (but I'm not a lawyer so I don't really know)... I'm just saying that things can appear safer than they actually are, and i think people who assess things for health and safety should take things like that into account (if they don't already), i.e. whether something like a net to catch cameras could result in parents putting their kids on a ledge thinking that the net would catch their child if the child fell, or even thinking that the net was there to catch children rather than cameras.

The parents will win through settlement. Anyone want to place a bet?

Three words: mauled, child, jury

Sadly, you are right.

Not if I'm on that jury.

And since you've already made up your mind, you wouldn't be picked.

I would fake my way in just so I can hear the judge declare a mistrial due to hung jury.

It sounds like the zoo had several options for viewing these animals, they had a railing and a netting and signs stating not to lift your child onto railings. We cannot protect the world against stupidity. I feel horrible for the family and friends of this boy, but it was a decision that the mother made to disregard the safety signs. Unfrotunately, a decision she will have to regret for the rest of her life. Blaming others won't change that.

A sign I recently saw. EVERYTHING HAPPENS FOR A REASON, BUT SOMETIMES THE REASON IS THAT YOU'RE STUPID AND MAKE BAD DECISION.

***Please note I'm not saying this mother is stupid...just that she made a bad decision.

The netting was for people dropping cell phones and cameras, not kids.

It would have been a trivial upgrade to make the netting strong enough to catch a child, but the zoo chose not to do that, despite the fact that they knew parents put their kids up on the railing multiple times a day.

Read this does it change your mind?

http://www.philly.com/philly/wires/ap/news/nation_world/20130523_ap_parentssuepittsburghzooinboysmaulingdeath.html

The parents of a 2-year-old boy who was fatally mauled after falling into a wild African dogs exhibit last fall filed a lawsuit Thursday against the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium, claiming officials had ample warning that parents routinely lifted children onto a rail overlooking the exhibit so they could see better.

The lawsuit filed on behalf of Jason and Elizabeth Derkosh seeks unspecified damages in the Nov. 4 death of their son, Maddox. The boy fell from a wooden railing after his mother lifted him up to get a better look at the painted dogs.

The bespectacled boy, who had vision issues, became the only visitor in the zoo's 116-year history to die when he unexpectedly lunged out of his mother's grasp atop the wooden railing and into a net meant to catch falling debris and trash, bouncing from it and down into the dogs' enclosure about 10 feet below.

According to the lawsuit, Elizabeth Derkosh tried to climb into the exhibit after her son, but was restrained by another zoo visitor.

"She was forced to watch helplessly as the African wild dogs savagely mauled and literally tore apart her son in front of her," according to the Allegheny County Common Pleas lawsuit filed by Philadelphia attorney Robert Mongeluzzi, an expert in construction site and other accidental deaths.

The boy suffered more than 220 injuries, mostly bites, and bled to death in the attack which included the "evisceration of his organs of the chest, abdomen and pelvis," the lawsuit said.

A zoo spokeswoman did not immediately comment.

"Elizabeth and Jason have asked us to find out why the Zoo had an unsafe exhibit, why they ignored warnings from their own employee regarding the very danger that killed Maddox and to ensure that no other family has to suffer the same unimaginable tragedy," Mongeluzzi said in the statement.

The lawsuit contends a zoo employee told KDKA-TV weeks after the boy's death that he had warned his supervisor that parents lifted their children onto the exhibit railing "at least 10" times daily, but was told, "This is not your concern, go back to work."

The lawsuit cites examples from at least 16 other U.S. zoos which use glass enclosures, wire fencing or other methods that allow children to view African painted dogs without risk of falling into the exhibit.

After the boy's death, the Pittsburgh zoo closed the observation deck, then eventually decided to move the 10 dog to three other American zoos. One of the 11 animals in the exhibit when the boy was mauled was killed by crews attempting to rescue the boy.

Zoo President Dr. Barbara Baker said last month that the exhibit was being closed because zoo staff and surrounding community still "need time to heal" from the boy's death.

Although the county district attorney has determined there was no criminal culpability on behalf of the boy's mother or zoo officials, reviews by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Associations of Zoos and Aquariums were continuing.

These two contradictory statements stuck out to me.

The argument being that there weren't adequate safety protocols in place. 116 years and not a single death? Sounds to me like they take safety pretty seriously.

There were protections put in place to safeguard children. The mother didn't like them, they blocked her son's view. So she deliberately circumvented them so he could get a better look.

Yes they could have been made even stricter. Had the dogs been encased in a concrete barrier I doubt anyone would have been hurt at all.

The fence was there specifically so the child would not fall in. The mother picked up her son and lifted him over the fence to get around that pesky little fact. To claim after the fact that the zoo did not do enough to safeguard her child, after she intentionally removed the safeguards that were in place to begin with, is insanity.