The victory of the Bears over the Eagles yesterday was marred by the death of a fan at Soldier Field — the second recent death at a major sporting event this month. The man has been identified as Stewart Haverty, 23.
The man fell from a ledge around 4:55 p.m. on Sunday. Witnesses say the man ran to the ledge and jumped — landing on a small rooftop. He was in his 20s.
Stadium falls are not uncommon, but the Bears are benefited legally by the accounts of the man’s running to the ledge. This would obviously raise an assumption of the risk defense. As we have previously discussed, however, there are an increasing number of cases involving “dram shop” type challenges.
A more difficult case could emerge from the tragic death on November 21st of Lucas Anthony Tang, 2, who was able to climb over a glass barrier to plummet to his death at the Staples Center. The boy had just taken pictures with the family after the game and somehow got over the barrier — falling 30 feet.
The stadium has to anticipate over-excited and inebriated fans in designing such barriers. For a 2-year-old to make it over a barrier is particularly worrisome. The stadium could counter with a contributory or comparative negligence claim in the failure to watch the child as a defense.
Notre Dame also recently had a recent death when Declan Sullivan, 20, fell thirty feet after a scissor lift collapsed. He was filming a Fighting Irish football practice and even tweeted before the accident about its dangers. His first tweet joked “Gusts of wind up to 60 mph. Well today will be fun at work. I guess I’ve lived long enough.” His second tweet was shorter and more ominous: “Holy —. Holy —. This is terrifying.”
Forty-five minutes later the tower collapsed and landed in the outside street.
A wrongful death case could cost Notre Dame a great deal of money. While the tweets can be used to establish contributory or comparative negligence, it also shows that the student should not have been sent up to the perch in a windstorm with 50 mile an hour winds. Even if he is found 20 percent at fault, it could cost the university millions.
Notre Dame officials including head coach Brian Kelly, Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick and others will face years of depositions and litigation. Swarbrick in particular will have a hard time since he was only 20 to 30 yards away when Sullivan fell.
This death at the Bears game was especially troubling since the decedent is from our town of Woodstock and went to the same high school as my son. Very sad. The Chicago news had the parents on and they were heartbroken.
Mespo,
I agree with you on the ND incident. The coaches are supposed to be the adults and they totally failed their responsibilities to the student worker. I hope ND has a deep pocket.
Very sad…
The ND case is particularly egregious because the wind advisory was already issued by the NWS and the scissor-lift itself advised that it should not be used in winds over 30 mph. Gusts that day reached 51 mph. Michigan and Ohio State both took precautions that day to keep student filmers out of the mobile towers. ND has accepted responsibility for the death in this comparative fault jurisdiction. I expect a mediated settlement fairly quickly.
if i had to sit through an entire football game i’d kill myself too.
wait, hold everything, the referee wants to watch t.v.
It will be interesting to see what comes from the facts. I am sure that there are plenty of relatives that waiting to morn his lost until they know the extent of the Bear’s liability.. then the drama will begin.
I guess I had totally missed the ND case.
Wow.
Then there was this in cased you missed it.
http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=5860086
AY,
Yeh, but it doesn’t count as a real sacrifice unless he was a virgin.
(I’m sorry, that was cold.)
Also this weekend
A young boy fell twelve feet to the ground during yesterday’s UCLA-Arizona State football game at Sun Devil Stadium, and the incident was caught on live TV.
you can google for the video
Wow, the Bears sacrifice a Fan in order to win…..In the lines of Abraham……But he couldn’t do it.
“His first tweet joked “Gusts of wind up to 60 mph. Well today will be fun at work. I guess I’ve lived long enough.” His second tweet was shorter and more ominous: “Holy —. Holy —. This is terrifying.”
Sad!
2 reactions:
Gee, I wonder if alcohol was involved?
Football kills a lot of men, it just does it slowly as the affects of drug abuse, the repeated collisions and blows to the head add up to an early death. And that says nothing about the lives it destroys of those who focus on it as a way out of poverty and hopelessness only to find they are either not quite good enough or that their knees are totaled first.