Just accept responsibilty.

I love my children, deeply.  I would love to protect them from everything dangerous in the world...but that isn't possible.  Sometimes, they do get hurt, either physical or emotional, and one of my responses as a parent is looking for anyone to blame for that hurt, other than myself.  Of course, one of the other responses is sometimes slipping into full on martyr mode, and accepting full blame, whether it's my fault or not.

Those are usually just an initial reaction though...given time, you usually come to accept that most accidents are just that...accidents.  Despite spending a large amount of my professional life dealing with invent investigations, and 'error traps' and corrective action development to prevent mistakes/accidents in the future...at heart, I still believe that sometimes...accidents are just that...accidents, whether they are industrial, or involving your kids.

A few year ago, during one of our rare snow/ice storms, a father took his child to one of the local schools that has a pretty sweet sledding hill.  On one of his sledding runs, the child ran into a concrete barrier, and got severely injured...had to be air-lifted to one of the major hospitals in Seattle, and still suffers from health effects of the accident today.  That's very sad...and if I was the dad who decided to bring my child to that location to go sledding, I would feel pretty lame, and in my guilt, I would be looking for someone else to help spread the blame.

However...I don't think I would try to file a TEN MILLION dollar claim against the school that happened to be built on a nice hill, which is what this family did this week. 

Nope.  Nope, Nope, Nope.  Maybe...just maybe, if this kid had been injured in a school mandated P.E. related sledding class...then I might be at least a little okay with this...but not in this circumstance.  Or maybe if the kid snuck off alone and hopped a poorly labeled fence...but not in this case.  Not when dad brought him sledding to this location, and I'm sure patted his youngin' on the head and said...run along and have fun.  I can picture it happen because I have seen it...and done it myself.  And then I have watched a sled take a goofy bounce, and swerve, and kids head off in unexpected directions towards unanticipated obstacles.  It's scary...but it's an accident. 

Technically it's not a lawsuit yet...the school get's two months to respond before they open themselves to be sued...but...stop.  Throw this out NOW, before it costs the taxpayers more money...and fine the lawyer who put the family up to this, and charge them for however much taxpayer money has already been spent.