Pool drains, disemboweling, and lawsuits

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Broomstick
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Pool drains, disemboweling, and lawsuits

Post by Broomstick »

This article in Newsweek is a follow up to this thread.
The family of a 6-year-old girl who lost part of her intestinal tract after sitting on an open drain in a wading pool is suing the pool manufacturer and the country club where the accident happened.

Abigail Taylor faces a small intestine transplant that will keep her hospitalized for six months, said family attorney Robert Bennett. Her lifetime medical expenses could total $30 million and the country club carries only $6 million in liability insurance, he said.

The lawsuit filed Thursday in Hennepin County District Court names as defendants the Minneapolis Golf Club and Sta-Rite Industries, the pool equipment manufacturer owned by Pentair Corp.

Pentair accuses the country club of failing to maintain its pool equipment. The Minneapolis Golf Club says its pools consistently pass city inspections.

Abigail has been hospitalized twice, each time for about a month, since the June 29 accident.

"Her attitude couldn't really be any better," said her father, Scott Taylor. "She is an amazing girl. ... She doesn't get down on herself. I think sometimes, Katey, my wife, and I have a harder time with this than she does going through it."

Abigail is walking and wears a backpack with one tube carrying nutrients to her chest and another tube carrying predigested food to her stomach. She wears a colostomy bag and attends school with a nurse who accompanies her 12 hours a day, Taylor said.

The lawsuit alleges that Abigail was playing in the kiddie pool when she fell and landed on the uncovered suction outlet. She became trapped when the sump created a vacuum and her intestines were pulled out through her rectum, the suit says.

Taylor said the lawsuit was necessary to provide for his daughter's future medical costs.


"It's a life-changing event, and our insurance is probably going to run out next year," he said. "In addition to that, it would be my hope that the manufacturer of this cover would change their product and take this one off the market."

Bennett alleges that Sta-Rite knew that its suction cover was a hazard and failed to come up with a safer product. The lawsuit cites three previous disembowelments caused by Sta-Rite equipment.

It also accuses the Minneapolis Golf Club of failing to properly install the cover and frame, failing to inspect it and failing to close the pool when the cover came off on the day of the accident.

Pentair issued a statement blaming the country club for its "misuse of its pool products, inadequate site supervision and improper maintenance." The company said a golf ball lodged in a pool pipe, creating the suction that led to the accident.

Dan Haws, an attorney for the country club, denied that a golf ball got stuck in the pipe. He said the drain cover had been in place shortly before the accident and was installed the same way for about four years and had never before come loose.

Several states have passed pool-safety laws after children drowned or were disemboweled by drain suction. North Carolina, for instance, requires pools to have dual drains to diffuse the force of the suction and prevent children from being trapped.
Emphasis added

Well, gosh, there's so much here - environmental hazards, insurance, liability, lawsuits, healthcare... the family is being more or less forced to sue to cover the cost of their child's healthcare, the country club has $6 million in liability insurance but apparently that's not nearly enough, bravo we can at least attempt intestinal transplants but they're fucking expensive and the follow-up care is lifelong...

Comments? Thoughts? Random ravings?
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Re: Pool drains, disemboweling, and lawsuits

Post by Turin »

Broomstick wrote:Well, gosh, there's so much here - environmental hazards, insurance, liability, lawsuits, healthcare... the family is being more or less forced to sue to cover the cost of their child's healthcare, the country club has $6 million in liability insurance but apparently that's not nearly enough, bravo we can at least attempt intestinal transplants but they're fucking expensive and the follow-up care is lifelong...

Comments? Thoughts? Random ravings?
The first thing that jumped to my mind was a question. In nations where they have universal government-provided healthcare, what would be happening in a case like this? Certainly it seems that there's plenty of liability to go around, but in such a case would it be the government attempting to recover these liability costs instead of forcing the family to go through with the expense and pain of an extended legal battle?
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Post by Netko »

No, in those situations, if they were warranted (higher proof needed then in civil cases), the government would go after the manufacturers with criminal charges not civil liability (although for the corporate entity the end result is the same, sans punishment for officers). The family could also sue, however the payouts are nowhere near US levels (example - when the Baxter dialysis scandal flared up where Baxter machines were causing a toxic mixture and killing patients the maximum payouts imposable by law in most of the affected European countries were in the hundred thousands range, depending on the age and earning capability of the deceased - Baxter later voluntarily payed out larger sums to hush the scandal up). On the other hand, the medical expenses of the family would be covered completely, excepting possibly the intestine transplant (don't know how experimental the procedure is).
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Post by B5B7 »

This is a well known danger, so there is a lot of negligence involved - not just the pool company and golf club, but also the county and state government for failure to make and enforce suitable legal provisions.

Thirty million dollars seems an excessive estimate for lifetime medical expenses, but then again this is a figure created by a lawyer and they always amp up considearably any cost estimates.
Anyway, I would imagine that a permanent medical solution would probably be created within the next ten years for this condition (and hopefully for the girl's quality of life this will be so).
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Post by Alyrium Denryle »

B5B7 wrote:This is a well known danger, so there is a lot of negligence involved - not just the pool company and golf club, but also the county and state government for failure to make and enforce suitable legal provisions.

Thirty million dollars seems an excessive estimate for lifetime medical expenses, but then again this is a figure created by a lawyer and they always amp up considearably any cost estimates.
Anyway, I would imagine that a permanent medical solution would probably be created within the next ten years for this condition (and hopefully for the girl's quality of life this will be so).
Not in this country it isnt. Think about it, there is the initial surgery, hospitalization, a lifetime of immunosuppressants, more hospitalizations, complications as a result of numerous medical procedures....
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Post by The Duchess of Zeon »

Alyrium Denryle wrote: Not in this country it isnt. Think about it, there is the initial surgery, hospitalization, a lifetime of immunosuppressants, more hospitalizations, complications as a result of numerous medical procedures....
If she has to have a nurse with her 12 hours a day, they're also paying two LPNs probably 15 dollars an hour, full-time, to take care of their daughter when she's not hospitalized. That's basically about sixty thousand dollars a year right there, minimum, and if that's an indefinite thing then it means several million dollars over a normal lifespan for the girl right there.
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Post by Broomstick »

B5B7 wrote:This is a well known danger, so there is a lot of negligence involved - not just the pool company and golf club, but also the county and state government for failure to make and enforce suitable legal provisions.

Thirty million dollars seems an excessive estimate for lifetime medical expenses
Not in the US.

Remember - we pay more for just about anything medical compared to anywhere else in the world.

Transplant surgery and care runs into the millions. Transplanted organs do not last forever - given her age, if she survives long enough, she'll need multiple transplants over the course of even half a normal lifetime. If she doesn't get her new intestines soon enough the IV feeding will destroy her liver (5-10 years on average) which means she'll need a new liver, too. That's IF she gets a transplant.

If not - well she'll need the nursing care, as pointed out that can run 60,000 a year, for 5-10 years (expected life expectancy without transplant) it'll be 300,000 - 600,000 just for the nurses. Plus hospitalizations (she's been in twice since June, a month each time), special foods, IV nutrition, colostomy supplies, medical equipment for the insertion points for IV and stomach tubes... It could cost a half a million a year to keep this kid alive. In 10 years that's 5 million. If she gets a transplant... well, another 10 years is another 5 million. At that rate 30,000,000 only pays for 60 years of life, but then, it's unlikely she'd live that long in any case. Keep in mind, too, that as she gets older she'll have other medical problems. Diabetes is a common complication of long-term immune suppression, that can cost some money to deal with (whether with insulin or a pancreas transplant - they kid could wind up mostly spare parts). Cardiovascular damage, lung damage... immune suppressing drugs can be toxic, their use is justified mainly because death would result much sooner without them. And, oh yes, organ recipients are also at much higher risk of cancer, another very expensive disease to treat.

In other words, this kid will never be normal again.
Anyway, I would imagine that a permanent medical solution would probably be created within the next ten years for this condition (and hopefully for the girl's quality of life this will be so).
You sir, are wildly, wildly optimistic.

Short of cloning a new digestive tract, and possibly other organs (unlikely to occur in the next ten years, I'd say) I don't see a permanent solution for this kid.
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Post by Phantasee »

Jesus, this is one of the most disturbing accidents I've ever heard of. Holy fuck, disemboweled through the rectum? The poor girl.

$30 million over a lifetime seems a little low to me, actually. In the US, at least.
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Post by The Duchess of Zeon »

All of the assets of the country club should be turned over to the family. I imagine that a golf course and fancy clubhouse and all associated assets should fetch around 40 mils on the open market in a growing urban area.
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Post by NomAnor15 »

Maybe this is just blatant ignorance on my part, but how is this the country club's fault, and not the manufacturer of the drain that was sat upon?
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Post by Broomstick »

The country club has a responsibility to keep their pool equipment as safe as possible. Since other, similar accidents have occurred over the past several decades it is arguable that disembowling by pool drain is a known hazard. There are means to reduce the danger to near zero, and it is the responsibility of the country club to use these means to do just that.

The issue is the drain cover - apparently there is some issue about it being loose, or not preventing this sort of suction reliably. If there is an inherent defect in the drain cover that could result in liability to the manufacturer, and again liability to the country club for not using a better alternative.
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If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. - John F. Kennedy

Sam Vimes Theory of Economic Injustice
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Post by rhoenix »

NomAnor15 wrote:Maybe this is just blatant ignorance on my part, but how is this the country club's fault, and not the manufacturer of the drain that was sat upon?
That I can recall (and I'm sure Google can confirm this), but there have been other reported cases of things like this happening with these sorts of drains, and the country club in question had it installed anyway. If the drain has been there since before or at the time of the other reported incidents, then this could've been obviated with the right preventative measures - but obviously was not.
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Post by NomAnor15 »

Broomstick
rhoenix

Ah, ok. That makes sense. Thank you.
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Post by Turin »

Netko wrote:No, in those situations, if they were warranted (higher proof needed then in civil cases), the government would go after the manufacturers with criminal charges not civil liability (although for the corporate entity the end result is the same, sans punishment for officers).
Just so that I'm clear here, you're saying that a corporation would be charged criminally, but successful charges would result in financial penalties to the corporation rather than, say, jail time to the company officials? Presumably these financial penalties would cover the government's costs for the victim. Do they include punitive fines as well?
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Post by The Duchess of Zeon »

Broomstick wrote:The country club has a responsibility to keep their pool equipment as safe as possible. Since other, similar accidents have occurred over the past several decades it is arguable that disembowling by pool drain is a known hazard. There are means to reduce the danger to near zero, and it is the responsibility of the country club to use these means to do just that.

The issue is the drain cover - apparently there is some issue about it being loose, or not preventing this sort of suction reliably. If there is an inherent defect in the drain cover that could result in liability to the manufacturer, and again liability to the country club for not using a better alternative.
The obvious way is installing a tightly-screwed raised solid cover with the water entrances to the side, instead of a simple flush grill. Also, the drains could be made very easily in such a way so that when no water was flowing down them an internal valve automatically closes, or else simply attach one drain to another drain with excess capacity, so that water continues to be sucked down at the normal rate even with one drain entirely covered. Though that shouldn't be possible in the first place with a raised, solid drain cover with side openings, which would cost maybe fifty bucks to make and install.
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Post by Netko »

Turin wrote:
Netko wrote:No, in those situations, if they were warranted (higher proof needed then in civil cases), the government would go after the manufacturers with criminal charges not civil liability (although for the corporate entity the end result is the same, sans punishment for officers).
Just so that I'm clear here, you're saying that a corporation would be charged criminally, but successful charges would result in financial penalties to the corporation rather than, say, jail time to the company officials? Presumably these financial penalties would cover the government's costs for the victim. Do they include punitive fines as well?
Both the officers would get charged and the corp would get penalized financially. However, note that there is a much, much higher bar to conviction then in civil cases so in practice it would take some pretty blatant criminal negligence to get them charged (for instance, not a lawyer and all, but I'd doubt this case would get government attention beyond possibly political pressure on the company to generously settle with the victim). The financial punishment is unlikely to be as high as US civil trial punitive fines.
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