Judge rules 4-year-old can be sued

[DroopyTofu]

I also noticed that it is not directly stated that the lady died from being hit by the bike. That would make a huuuuge difference.

I don't really get this. I think it's all semantics. The parents will represent the child. The parents will handle the trial. The parents will pay the bill. For all intents and purposes they are sueing the parents in all ways, except nominally. Since they are obviously planning on getting money from the parents, not the four year old, then why not just sue the parents. I know that technically the parents did not physically hit the lady with a bike, but they should have been paying close enough attention to do something about it.

 

[Evie]

Because it's quite conceivable that a judge might decide that the parents did everything they could legitimately be expected to do and thus did no wrong, and that only the kids are to blame for what happened. The reverse is also quite conceivable.

So if you only sue one, you expose yourself to the judge saying "Sorry, you really were screwed over, but you're not actually suing the person who screwed you over so I have to rule against you."

That's why you target BOTH the parents and the kid, and try to prove BOTH that the parents were negligent in their handling of the kid and that the kid was negligent in racing down the street when they should have known better. Let the judge decide which suit, if any, he should lend more credence to.

One-trick ponies lose in law.

 

[GhostWriter16]

What Jolly Roger said. You're comparing apples and oranges.

If a 4 year old found a gun, played with it, shot someone, then I would have no strong objection to a civil lawsuit naming the four years old as a defendant (not accused, that's criminal), nor would I be particularly concerned with the same 4 years old being found to be old enough to know that what they were doing was wrong. This is because the judge only has to determine which is more likely based on the evidence presented him (including, presumably, actually talking to the girl).

Make it a criminal trial instead, and I would have a much bigger case of raised eyebrow at the girl being found responsible for her actions, would it only be because the burden of proof moves from "most likely of all possible options" to "proven beyond reasonable doubt", which is a lot harder to make, and a lot easier to defend against.

As for sentencing, yeah, what JollyRoger said.

------------------------

.Shane. - As far as I can see, in practice, that's pretty likely to be the end result here: even if the girl is found responsible, it's likely that her parents will be responsible for the bill; and of course they'll be the ones who will handle the actual trial. But she has to be named as defendant because the suing party hold that racing bikes in the streets was a wrong action that resulted in negative consequences for them; and that's what SHE did, not what her PARENTS did.

(What her parents can be sued for, conceivably, is failing to educate her about it being wrong to race bikes in streets; and failing to watch her well enough and keep her from racing bikes in streets).

Well, the thing is, you can only sue the parents for, you know, what they did. So, sue them for negligence MAYBE (Depends on the exact nuances) but certainly not for manslaughter.

The child is four, he is not completely capable of seeing the wrong in what he's doing. I believe so in simple cases, such as "Don't take things that don't belong to you," or "Don't beat people to death" but its not quite that simple here. Still rather simple, but not for a four year old.

 

[Evie]

That's for the judge to determine based on the evidence at the trial, isn't it?

Not all four years old are equal. In the absence of a legal (including precedent) statement that people four years old cannot be considered responsible for their action, it falls to the judge to determine whether or not she was mature enough to know, based on available proof.

In this case, having a great deal more knowledge of the facts and people involved than we do, the judge determined that the girl was mature enough to understand what she had done.

Regarding:

Well, the thing is, you can only sue the parents for, you know, what they did. So, sue them for negligence MAYBE (Depends on the exact nuances) but certainly not for manslaughter.

Yes, that's what I've been saying (the two halves of my post were in reply to two different statements) - you can only sue them personally for what they did, but if you sue the daughter, the parents will effectively act as her surrogates during the trial, and extremely likely end up footing the bill if she is condemned to pay anything.

 

[DroopyTofu]

Because it's quite conceivable that a judge might decide that the parents did everything they could legitimately be expected to do and thus did no wrong, and that only the kids are to blame for what happened. The reverse is also quite conceivable.

So if you only sue one, you expose yourself to the judge saying "Sorry, you really were screwed over, but you're not actually suing the person who screwed you over so I have to rule against you."

That's why you target BOTH the parents and the kid, and try to prove BOTH that the parents were negligent in their handling of the kid and that the kid was negligent in racing down the street when they should have known better. Let the judge decide which suit, if any, he should lend more credence to.

One-trick ponies lose in law.

It seems like it's all semantics to me. They are sueing the parents, regardless of who the name is on the case. It seems ridiculous to try and sue a four year old, even if she was the one who physically committed the act. The judge knows the kid won't do anything more than maybe testify. The parents are the ones doing everything regarding handling the case, so just put their names on it, but keep the case about hitting the old lady like it is now.

 

[Silurian]

If the children are being sued separately from the parents can't the kids just declare bankrupt assuming they do not have their own funds.

If the parents are liable for the children’s debts how old do the children have to be before the parents are not liable? (My step daughter is 23 but we support her completely)

 

[SerriaFox]

It seems like it's all semantics to me.

That is what the law has become. Lawyers spend years in school to learn how to argue semantics and forget about right and wrong.

 

[cubsfan6506]

And just note, I am VERY harsh on young people. In my opinion, if you are old enough to premeditate murder and you do it, you should be publicly executed. If your murder was not premeditated, I think that the age should be 13 or lower for public execution. Even with my crazy extreme opinions on the responsibility of the young, four is too young.

How as no one gone wtf at this yet.

 

[Evie]

It seems like it's all semantics to me. They are sueing the parents, regardless of who the name is on the case. It seems ridiculous to try and sue a four year old, even if she was the one who physically committed the act. The judge knows the kid won't do anything more than maybe testify. The parents are the ones doing everything regarding handling the case, so just put their names on it, but keep the case about hitting the old lady like it is now.

It is semantic that can be important in some cases, for example (as Jolly Roger pointed out) if the kid is somewhow independently wealthy (with money that's not in a trust fund). It can also be important to distinguish who gets the legal blame in case in later year there is a legal conflict between kid and legal guardians.

SerriaFox - with all due respect, right and wrong for a lawyer consist of doing eveything (legal) they can to obtain the best possible outcome for their client, or not doing it. Lawyers are not in service of the public, but of specific people who request their help with handling the complexities of the law. If we were to impose public perception of right or wrong upon lawyers, we'd have lynch mobs, not justice.

And the law is complex not to give people the chance to cheat, but because the law deals with reality, which is about the most complex thing there is.

 

[SerriaFox]

I just think it is sad that technicalities are more important than over all rightness or wrongness, even though I do understand the reasons

 

[Evie]

The problem with fundamental rightness and wrongness is that they're subjective - and as such likely to depend on how sympathetic each party is, the political opinion of the judge and so forth.

This should not happen - justice should be blind. That's why there are specific definitions and technical "tests" and ways of doing things - because ultimately justice should be objective, and technical checklists are much more objective than people's idea of right and wrong.

Sometime it results in apparently strange rulings, but ultimately, it's better this way.

 

[Whiskey_Lord]

How as no one gone wtf at this yet.

You're still surprised at responses like this? Seriously Dom, just watch a horror movie if you want to see people killed that badly. There are plenty of them of TV this time of year.

 

[.Shane.]

How as no one gone wtf at this yet.

Hoping that if you ignore it it will go away.

 

[Dumanios]

Has no one that this is just how bad the economy is?

 

[Thedrin]

Maybe my reading of the article was off, but I didn't see any indication that the children deliberately tried to hit the woman. In fact, from my reading I got the impression that it was an accident.

IF that is the case - if it was an accident - is it anyway relevant if the girl knows that deliberately hitting someone with their bike is wrong.

 

[BCLG100]

That is what the law has become. Lawyers spend years in school to learn how to argue semantics and forget about right and wrong.

No we don't.

And the law is complex not to give people the chance to cheat, but because the law deals with reality, which is about the most complex thing there is.

Very rarely do people actually 'get off' on technicalities. There isn't really a way to 'cheat' the system.

Maybe my reading of the article was off, but I didn't see any indication that the children deliberately tried to hit the woman. In fact, from my reading I got the impression that it was an accident.

IF that is the case - if it was an accident - is it anyway relevant if the girl knows that deliberately hitting someone with their bike is wrong.

Yes, it's irrelevant. The jist of negligence, in English and Welsh law at least and i can't imagine it is too intrinsically different in US law even though it was developed after the split, is;
1. relationship between the parties
2. foresight of harm
3. fair to impose a duty (in this case upon a four year old/her parents)

So the mens rea would only be useful if this was a criminal trial, which it is not.

 

[innonimatu]

Citation needed, as they say. Yes, I've met four years old. I've met some who fit your description. I've met others who were far more mature than you describe. Why should the law automatically assume the former?

Moreover, the legal system is not so much concerned with whether or not someone can appreciate the consequences of their actions, but with whether or not they had the mental capacity to understand that what they were doing was wrong. If you were doing something wrong (though the definition of wrong is sometime made ludicrously broad), and that wrong something happens to have negative consequences, you are responsible for them - no matter how unforeseeable the consequences actually were. At least that appears to be the principle I've encountered so far.

And that principle may be very practical, but it certainly is neither logical nor moral. "Right" or "wrong" are moral judgments and no one is educated on the morals of every possible action, one has to logically apply general rules to specific situations.

Lets assume that the 4-year old had some moral education pointing to "harming other people is wrong", and that she had some idea that running her bicycle into anothe person was could cause harm. I'm admitting already more than would be reasonable for that age. Now, unless the 4-year-old was had also been educated under the commandment "thou shalt not run into old ladies", the only way she could know that doing so was wrong was by reasoning "old ladies will be harmed by me running into them, unlike my play partners who can get out of the way, or adults who'll just stop the bicycle. So, because it is immoral to harm other people, and because I figured out that this could lady can be harmed, I won't run into her."

A child's mind simply cannot be expected to be able to make that reasoning. It's utterly stupid to expect that kind of logical reasoning from a 4 year-old. The very idea of the possible scales of harm eludes them. You want a citation? Check when young children first start understating the idea of death. Without the ability to understand death, or maiming (at about the same age), then "harm" is just a temporary discomfort in their experience. Expecting them to evaluate a situation correctly is insane.
There's a reason why the legal system doesn't prosecute children as criminals: they're not responsible. If they're not responsible criminally, then for the very same reasons they are not responsible in any other way.

Young children's understanding of death

There is a long history of research on children's understanding of death. This article briefly reviews psychoanalytic and Piagetian literature on children's death concepts, then focuses on recent research in developmental psychology that examines children's understanding of death in the context of their developing folk theory of biology. This new research demonstrates that children first conceptualise death as a biological event around age 5 or 6 years, at the same time that they begin to construct a biological model of how the human body functions to maintain “life”. This detailed new account of children's developing biological knowledge has implications for practitioners who may be called on to communicate about death with young children.

 

[Formaldehyde]

You can't very well violate the law by allowing your 4-year-old to operate his bicycle on the sidewalk and not expect to be held accountable for it when someone dies as a direct result. Of course, I am assuming that the child was operating the bicycle on the sidewalk instead of the street. But given that no parent would want a kid that age riding on even a one-way residential street like 52nd Street in Manhattan, I think it is a reasonable assumption.

If the parents were being responsible adults, I think they would have told the kids to stop riding whenever anybody was present on the sidewalk no matter the circumstances.

Bailiff, whack their peepees. (Apologies to Cheech & Chong.)

 

[Formaldehyde]

I just discovered a few new twists to this story after it was reported in the local paper this morning:

1) The woman apparently died of natural causes unrelated to this incident which broke her hip.

2) The kids were "racing" their bicycles on the sidewalk and both of them apparently struck her.

3) Her son is an attorney who continued this lawsuit after she died. The original lawsuit apparently did not blame the kids but only the parents.

4) None of the stories I have read consistently report the facts without any errors. One of them even insinuated that she died due to being struck in the caption of a photo, then states in the body of the article that it was due to natural causes.

 

[Mise]

Thanks Oda and JR for explaining the legal stuff behind this case. It's been most interesting.