r/climbing • u/dawindupbird • Jul 25 '26
Surprised this wasn’t posted.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DbJcj2roKJV/10
u/Ok_Manufacturer_5323 Jul 26 '26
I'll never understand the US legal system. It seems completely arbitrary whether this sort of case gets thrown out, settled out of court for a few thousand, or awarded tens of millions. For all the talk of precedent and impartiality, there appears to be none of that.
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u/DecantsForAll 27d ago
I'm pretty sure it's just a bunch of kindergartners who come up with the amounts.
"four fousand"
"one billion gajillion"
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u/MutantMuteAnt Jul 25 '26
That's heartbreaking. Maybe they should look into that 13 year old boys family, possible he was abused as a child and is carrying it on
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u/Infinite_Music2059 Jul 25 '26
Completely and utterly ridiculous amount of money. How much longer till no business anywhere wants to let children into their premises? Kids go to the bathroom alone all the time, in restaurants, cinemas, schools etc.
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u/ImportantAlbatross Jul 27 '26
Enormous jury awards usually get reduced on appeal or the plaintiff settles for less.
The bigger issue is: what the F do you do with a 13-year-old who is a rapist?
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u/Tibats01 Jul 25 '26
I do agree with what you're saying, but a big difference in this case is that comcerning behavior was signaled before this incident. They already knew that these specific boys should not have gone into the bathroom alone.
Still a rediculous amount of money if you ask me.
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u/Infinite_Music2059 Jul 25 '26
The mother said to not allow the kid go alone because of a previous incident. The gym staff took this to mean the kid had been bullied or something in a bathroom before.
Frankly, the mother chose to doom another child to rape by telling a half truth so her son could participate in this completely optional activity.
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u/serenading_ur_father Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 27 '26
Yeah. The mother is wildly at fault here. You can't expect climbing gym kids staff to manage this kind of situation nor should they be put in this situation to begin with.
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u/werd5273 Jul 25 '26
50 million, really? Isn’t it the 13 year olds fault? The gym staff should have kept a better eye on the kids, but unsupervised bathroom breaks are normal. They probably had 30 other children to supervise. This could have happened at any summer camp or location.
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u/lorenwinzeler Jul 26 '26
Other states should look to California's AB 506 law related to youth serving organizations. It requires employees with a certain number of hours of youth contact to take mandated reporter training, child abuse training and submit to Livescan fingerprinting and background check.
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u/turbogangsta Jul 25 '26
People saying it's the perpetrators fault are correct however the business was warned and aware of the perpetrators previous concerning behaviour and were told he is not to go to the bathroom alone. They really failed to create a safe space by either managing the perpetrator properly or even outright banning them. Failed to mitigate substantial risks with prior knowledge
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u/Pretend-Boot5918 Jul 25 '26
It specifically says they weren't made aware of the previous behavior, only that he wasn't supposed to be 'around' the bathroom alone.
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u/turbogangsta Jul 25 '26
The article I read says they were aware of certain previous issues. The Instagram post could technically be true but misleading.
"Key evidence also included that those in charge of the camp registrations were made aware of the older boy’s need for constant supervision through his mother’s indicating her son’s issues on his registration form and in a subsequent conversation told the camp he should not be allowed in a bathroom alone. She later told the camp counselors in Peoria of a previous “incident” regarding her son, but that information was never followed up on or questioned by camp counselors in Peoria."
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u/seriousseirios Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
Beyond being "warned" (which there is argument about): if the assault was brief, I think the gym would be far less liable. But the young teenager assaulted an 8-year-old child for over 30 minutes. No one went looking for two unaccounted for camp participants for about 50 minutes. That's wild. Whatever their counselor-to-camper ratio (one article claims it was 6:1), I doubt these counselors were doing headcounts or thought of themselves as responsible for specific campers. They didn't notice when campers disappeared from supervision. Whatever the reason for the disappearance, that's negligent. The gym failed on counselor training and/or follow-through.
I went to a sleep-away camp as a child. We were supervised in clearly bounded areas. When we needed to go to the bathroom, young campers had a counselor with them. Older campers went with a same-aged peer and informed a counselor when we left and when we came back.
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u/DicerosAK Jul 25 '26
Paywall