I totally agree with those against the decision of the justice.
It seems to be a trend within the American legal system to hold younger and younger children liable for acts of negligence.
I don't know all of the facts of the case, but greed certainly seems to be the motivation behind a lawsuit such as this.
In my opinion, and also I think in the opinion of many neurobiologists, medical professionals, child psycholgists, and others that have a great amount of knowledge about developmental biology and experience working with young children, a child of four is neurologically very undeveloped in all respects from motor control to cognitive and reasoning capabilities. Therefore, a child of this age is incapable of understanding the consequences of their actions, or foreseeing a negative outcome of a given action. On average, they simply do not possess the ability to do so.
Suing the parents for negligence- fine, at least that's fair. The parents have fully developed brains, and years of exprience to draw from. A child of four has little if any understanding of how the world works. Four year-old children do things like put on capes and jump off of buildings because they think that they can fly.
There is another side to this as well- carelessness on the part of the 87 year old woman. The 87 year old woman was an adult of presumably sound mind who made a conscious decision in her frail condition to take a major risk and go out walking on a busy sidewalk in New York city. The world is not a safe place and accidents are commonplace. A person of 87 years should be well aware of this, and should not have been traveling outside of her home unassisted and while in a compromised state.
I think that people don't realize that setting a legal precedent for holding children of this age liable opens the door to all manner of lawsuits brought by greedy, unscrupulous individuals and the law firms that represent them. It also further backs up a legal system that is already stopped up with frivolous law suits such as these.
Shame on the justice for allowing this suit to proceed. He's done all parties involved and his society a great disservice.
It seems to be a trend within the American legal system to hold younger and younger children liable for acts of negligence.
I don't know all of the facts of the case, but greed certainly seems to be the motivation behind a lawsuit such as this.
In my opinion, and also I think in the opinion of many neurobiologists, medical professionals, child psycholgists, and others that have a great amount of knowledge about developmental biology and experience working with young children, a child of four is neurologically very undeveloped in all respects from motor control to cognitive and reasoning capabilities. Therefore, a child of this age is incapable of understanding the consequences of their actions, or foreseeing a negative outcome of a given action. On average, they simply do not possess the ability to do so.
Suing the parents for negligence- fine, at least that's fair. The parents have fully developed brains, and years of exprience to draw from. A child of four has little if any understanding of how the world works. Four year-old children do things like put on capes and jump off of buildings because they think that they can fly.
There is another side to this as well- carelessness on the part of the 87 year old woman. The 87 year old woman was an adult of presumably sound mind who made a conscious decision in her frail condition to take a major risk and go out walking on a busy sidewalk in New York city. The world is not a safe place and accidents are commonplace. A person of 87 years should be well aware of this, and should not have been traveling outside of her home unassisted and while in a compromised state.
I think that people don't realize that setting a legal precedent for holding children of this age liable opens the door to all manner of lawsuits brought by greedy, unscrupulous individuals and the law firms that represent them. It also further backs up a legal system that is already stopped up with frivolous law suits such as these.
Shame on the justice for allowing this suit to proceed. He's done all parties involved and his society a great disservice.