I consider the value of my children to be PRICELESS, once any court sets the value of the damages, its no longer priceless but something significantly less, and whatever that amount of money is, cannot replace the life of the lost.

Chetos said:

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Lawyers don't solve problems. They negotiate settlements based on compromises… everything leading up to that is just a show to maximize billable hours.

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Maybe so. How do you propose making sure that a camp that does not abide by reasonable safety warnings never does it again? Or any new camp for that matter?

And I hate lawsuits and don't disagree with your premise. But Mystic was willfully negligent with the lives of 8 y/o little girls. That is pretty bad.

JFABNRGR said:

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I consider the value of my children to be PRICELESS, once any court sets the value of the damages, its no longer priceless but something significantly less, and whatever that amount of money is, cannot replace the life of the lost.

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Agree. And Iknow several of the families. They are only interested in making sure that a Camp for kids could never again be so reckless and irresponsible. Most of them have plenty of money.

dermdoc said:

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schmellba99 said:

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Mostly the RV park since that is the subject of the OP, but the camps also to some degree.

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So if the camp had been warned repeatedly "an act of God" flood like this this could occur and they did nothing are they liable?

Or if they had been told repeatedly to move their cabins further away from the river, are they liable?

And they had also been told instead of a 500 or 100 year flood deal it had been reduced to 50?

And they were in charge of kids and not adults. And there were only 4 adults "on duty" at the time. And I have a solid account of a counselor warning the male owner 3 times as the waters were rising and was told not to move the girls from the cabin she was in, She finally moved them on her own and thankfully all lived.

I was firmly on the "Act of God" deal myself until I learned all this new info. I personally would sue just so this would never happen again.

And I predict Mystic will settle as I have been told there is written correspondence confirming the warnings. And Mystic used their clout with the local government to get around it all. And never told any parents,to my knowledge,
Either orally or in writing of the danger that they had been repeatedly warned about? For Pete's sake, these are 8 y/o little girls. It should be assumed with them not being adults, the camp is even more responsible for their safety.

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You're not going to get a reasonable discussion. This poster already stated that they pretty much hate all lawyers. Everyone that feels like a lawsuit is unwarranted made that decision the second these floods happened.

I'm sorry that some families would have to even consider some people with strong opinions about their reasons for filing a lawsuit on top of the immense pain they already are dealing with. I personally side with the families that have experienced immeasurable loss. I'm confident that if there was negligence then our courts will do a good job of sorting that out.

dermdoc said:

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Chetos said:

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Lawyers don't solve problems. They negotiate settlements based on compromises… everything leading up to that is just a show to maximize billable hours.

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Maybe so. How do you propose making sure that a camp that does not abide by reasonable safety warnings never does it again? Or any new camp for that matter.

And I hate lawsuits and don't disagree with your premise. But Mystic was willfully negligent with the lives of 8 y/o little girls. That is pretty bad.

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I don't know the answer nor am I in position to argue for or against a lawsuit here. I was just saying , that when I've been involved with a lawsuit, either as a plaintiff or expert witness, that it's annoying as hell cause I'm wired to fix problems and I learned real quick that lawyers aren't. They don't teach root cause analysis in law school.

there has to be a distinction made between the rv camp and mystic

i also reject the notion that we could not have seen this kind of an event coming. could we have seen this specific event coming? no. could we have seen this kind of event coming? well yeah a version of it happened in 87 leading to the loss of life. this is a natural extension of events that happened at a smaller scale. camps on the guad were unprepared all those years ago and they're still not prepared.

mystic might not have seen this coming but they had enough info knowing that they were classified as being in a flood plain/way and did what they needed to do to minimize their financial responsibility associated with it instead. they did that over and over again.

fullback44 said:

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I think there will be many lawsuits unfortunately, people want to blame someone…. That was a 500 year flood.. if that's not an "act of god"…. Then what is ?

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Don't live in Texas...

but even I heard that there were several warnings on people's cell phones and on the News.

now it's a trailer park fault for the people not evacuating LIVING ON A RIVER that floods?

Chetos said:

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dermdoc said:

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Chetos said:

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Lawyers don't solve problems. They negotiate settlements based on compromises… everything leading up to that is just a show to maximize billable hours.

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Maybe so. How do you propose making sure that a camp that does not abide by reasonable safety warnings never does it again? Or any new camp for that matter.

And I hate lawsuits and don't disagree with your premise. But Mystic was willfully negligent with the lives of 8 y/o little girls. That is pretty bad.

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I don't know the answer nor am I in position to argue for or against a lawsuit here. I was just saying , that when I've been involved with a lawsuit, either as a plaintiff or expert witness, that it's annoying as hell cause I'm wired to fix problems and I learned real quick that lawyers aren't. They don't teach root cause analysis in law school.

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I am the same way. And there are a ton of frivolous lawsuits. In my opinion, this is not one.

Quote:

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Agree. And Iknow several of the families. They are only interested in making sure that a Camp for kids could never again be so reckless and irresponsible. Most of them have plenty of money.

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So they'd settle for just a covenant from the Camp to never reopen? Or to implement certain safety protocols?


Guessing that is not the case, nor would their attorney go for it. Hard to take 40% of "we won't do it again"

Im Gipper said:

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Quote:

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Agree. And Iknow several of the families. They are only interested in making sure that a Camp for kids could never again be so reckless and irresponsible. Most of them have plenty of money.

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So they'd settle for just a covenant from the Camp to never reopen? Or to implement certain safety protocols?


Guessing that is not the case, nor would their attorney go for it. Hard to take 40% of "we won't do it again"

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Hard to get "we won't do it again" for $1. And shouldn't someone pay if they were negligent and that caused a death?

LMCane said:

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fullback44 said:

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I think there will be many lawsuits unfortunately, people want to blame someone…. That was a 500 year flood.. if that's not an "act of god"…. Then what is ?

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Don't live in Texas...

but even I heard that there were several warnings on people's cell phones and on the News.

now it's a trailer park fault for the people not evacuating LIVING ON A RIVER that floods?

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They weren't living there. This was an RV resort. Temporary guests like a hotel.

ABATTBQ11 said:

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fullback44 said:

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I think there will be many lawsuits unfortunately, people want to blame someone…. That was a 500 year flood.. if that's not an "act of god"…. Then what is ?

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500 year flood or not, anyone living on a river, or in this case operating a campground, in Texas and especially in the hill country knows there is a risk of flash flooding. Their lawsuit probably states the campground did not properly mitigate that risk by having an evacuation plan or properly executing it if they did. I haven't read it yet, but that's what I assume it would say. You can't predict the particulars of the actual event, but that doesn't mean you can't adequately prepare for the eventuality.

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That assumes that the RV Park has some responsibility under the law to take responsibility for warning and evacuating them. If I go to a campground along the river anywhere, I don't think it is the campground's responsibility to have a plan to evacuate me. It is my responsibility to know the potential hazards where I plan to go and have a plan to avoid/mitigate them. Paying for a spot to park my RV doesn't magically shift that burden of responsibility to somebody else.

Not sure what that first part means, but absolutely they should pay if they were negligent.

(I don't think anyone here has said they shouldn't if negligent)

Im Gipper said:

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Quote:

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Agree. And Iknow several of the families. They are only interested in making sure that a Camp for kids could never again be so reckless and irresponsible. Most of them have plenty of money.

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So they'd settle for just a covenant from the Camp to never reopen? Or to implement certain safety protocols?


Guessing that is not the case, nor would their attorney go for it. Hard to take 40% of "we won't do it again"

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What stops another camp from opening up and being willfully negligent if there is no penalty for their behavior?

I was floored when I learned more of the information on how Mystic had responded to warnings in the past. Completely changed my mind about their responsibility.

jt16 said:

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LMCane said:

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fullback44 said:

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I think there will be many lawsuits unfortunately, people want to blame someone…. That was a 500 year flood.. if that's not an "act of god"…. Then what is ?

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Don't live in Texas...

but even I heard that there were several warnings on people's cell phones and on the News.

now it's a trailer park fault for the people not evacuating LIVING ON A RIVER that floods?

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They weren't living there. This was an RV resort. Temporary guests like a hotel.

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Not like a hotel. In a hotel, you are paying for a roof over your head and implied safety from the outside elements. In an RV park, you are paying for a place to park your RV and hook up to water and power. There is no implied agreement that the RV park will protect you from anything.

Quote:

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There is no implied agreement that the RV park will protect you from anything.

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Pretty certain Texas law vehemently disagrees with your claim.

Im Gipper said:

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Quote:

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There is no implied agreement that the RV park will protect you from anything.

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Pretty certain Texas law vehemently disagrees with your claim.

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Got a citation? Not trying to be a dick, just honestly amazed if we have something like that on the books.

Quote:

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Business invitees are owed a duty of reasonable care

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Quote:

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the duty of the landowner is to exercise reasonable care to make the premises safe or provide adequate warning of the danger

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CITATION

Regarding the RV park case, there is an Austin Court of Appeals case from 2016 that, to me, seems to be directly on point, Walker v. UME, Inc., No. 03-15-00271-CV, 2016 WL 3136878, at *4 (Tex. App.Austin June 3, 2016, pet. denied) . In that case, the court observed:

Quote:

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The June 2010 flood was not a condition inherent in or on the land in question. Instead, the flooding was a condition that came to the campground as the adjacent river, the same river that made the land an attractive place to camp, rose due to heavy rains. The Walkers and the Johnsons had gone canoeing on the river the day before the flooding occurred, and thus they were obviously aware of the river's proximity to their campsite. This situation is indeed a tragic one, but it is not one for which appellees can be held to bear legal responsibility. We hold that as a matter of law appellees had no duty to warn the Walkers and Johnsons of the possibility that the river they were camping beside might rise in the event of heavy rain, posing a risk to the campground.

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opinion

The Camp Mystic case is an entirely different manner. Camp Mystic wasn't renting spaces to adults; it was a childcare operation. When you look at the photos of the camp that are available on Google Earth, it seems pretty obvious that they chose to build in the floodway in order to be near the water. If that's the choice you make, you darn sure better be prepared for any eventuality that the river throws at you, and they apparently weren't.

Im Gipper said:

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Kidding aside, you knowing good reputable lawyers doesn't remotely suggest that the "bad apples" are an outlier.

In my experience, they far outweigh the good!

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If we are going to generalize, I only have experience with five types of lawyers:

1) Litigation lawyers - more bad than good. Very tough lifestyle. This is where people with liberal arts educations and investment banking intelligence and drive wind up. Probably as much cocaine ingested here as on Wall Street. Lots of slimy people here. But, this is a place where you have some of the smartest people in the world fighting about disputes worth hundreds of $milltions that are settled by 12 disinterested people with, on average, an 8th grade education.

2) Transaction lawyers - mostly good. This is where really smart geeks that are happy to learn lots of very boring, very arcane stuff in order to make as much money as the trial lawyers, but don't want to work as hard as the trial lawyers, go. Very boring rich guys who you forget are even in the room until you get close to closing the deal, when they say, hey, you know what? I can increase the value of that transaction from $300 million to $330 million by moving all of the target companies IP to Ireland and set up a management company in Barbados. They get invited to the closing party and talk all night about how the champagne at the party is the same as the one he drinks at the Dungeons & Dragons campaign he runs on Sunday in River Oaks with the Rice PhD students.

3) Real Estate lawyers - mostly good. People who went to law school and didn't study very hard, but found a good niche. All kinds of people wind up here. The commercial and development RE lawyers can be really slimy, but mostly focus on screwing the government and institutional investors, which is just fine by me.

4) Corporate lawyers - Litigation or Transaction attorneys that flamed out and wanted a cushy 40 hour a week job of continually telling CEOs they shouldn't do the thing that they really want to do because of the liability risks, and telling the sales people that they can't sell to their customer who is demanding a waiver from indemnity, just before they hit the golf course at 4pm. Generally good people who are fine giving very risk averse advice knowing they will be ignored. Some really bad people that work for the likes of Enron.

5) Patent prosecution attorneys - kinda like the transaction lawyers, but not as rich, and more interested in their sports car that they don't drive, sailboat that has never been in the water, or their water-cooled crypto mining rigs, than they are interested in actually interacting socially with others.

Trial lawyers are only like 1% of lawyers, but contain the majority of the really slimy lawyers. Like politics, that profession attracts and breeds the real cockroaches.

Im Gipper said:

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Quote:

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Business invitees are owed a duty of reasonable care

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Quote:

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the duty of the landowner is to exercise reasonable care to make the premises safe or provide adequate warning of the danger

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CITATION

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I need something a little more authoritative than a link to page 4 of this thread to convince me that "Texas Law vehemently disagrees with me".

Yes, they are expected to provide a safe and sanitary site for people to park and use their RV, which would mean things like making sure their RV hookups don't burst into flames or short out the RV systems, that their water is potable and safe to drink, that they don't have dead tree limbs ready to fall onto campers, etc. Those are things that are within their control. They have no control over the rising of the river and I would be shocked if they had the legal responsibility under Texas law for providing an evacuation plan or other real-time warning systems.

MouthBQ98 said:

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The risks one takes of their own free will in camping near a River are evident and implicit. There is no duty on anyone else to be aware of weather or of the potential results of it. Every Mr really competent adult human being should understand that camping near a river carries sone small and voluntary risk of flooding consequences.

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What about 8 year old girls staying overnight at a Christian summer camp? How much duty do those 8 year olds have in knowing the risks about camping near rivers and staying on top of the weather?

From the case cited by twk above:

Quote:

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When an injured invitee asserts a premises-liability claim, she must show that the owner or occupier had actual or constructive knowledge of a condition that posed an unreasonable risk of harm and did not exercise reasonable care to reduce or eliminate the risk and that such failure proximately caused her injury.

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So as aggiehawg and BMX Bandit explained, the property owner must protect visitors from dangerous conditions, either by eliminating or warning. The case goes on to explain why the rising water was not a dangers condition on the property.



https://case-law.vlex.com/vid/walker-ex-rel-estate-889806200

twk said:

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Regarding the RV park case, there is an Austin Court of Appeals case from 2016 that, to me, seems to be directly on point, Walker v. UME, Inc., No. 03-15-00271-CV, 2016 WL 3136878, at *4 (Tex. App.Austin June 3, 2016, pet. denied) . In that case, the court observed:

Quote:

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The June 2010 flood was not a condition inherent in or on the land in question. Instead, the flooding was a condition that came to the campground as the adjacent river, the same river that made the land an attractive place to camp, rose due to heavy rains. The Walkers and the Johnsons had gone canoeing on the river the day before the flooding occurred, and thus they were obviously aware of the river's proximity to their campsite. This situation is indeed a tragic one, but it is not one for which appellees can be held to bear legal responsibility. We hold that as a matter of law appellees had no duty to warn the Walkers and Johnsons of the possibility that the river they were camping beside might rise in the event of heavy rain, posing a risk to the campground.

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opinion

The Camp Mystic case is an entirely different manner. Camp Mystic wasn't renting spaces to adults; it was a childcare operation. When you look at the photos of the camp that are available on Google Earth, it seems pretty obvious that they chose to build in the floodway in order to be near the water. If that's the choice you make, you darn sure better be prepared for any eventuality that the river throws at you, and they apparently weren't.

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Thank you. This is the kind of citation I was asking Gipper for and it seems to "vehemently disagree" with his opinion. In order to hold the RV Park owners liable in the face of that standard, the litigants would have to prove that the people renting RV spots were completely unaware of the existence of the river next to their camping area or the potential that the river could flood in heavy rain. Both would seem to be a very high bar for the plaintiffs to achieve.

jt16 said:

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Im Gipper said:

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Quote:

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Agree. And Iknow several of the families. They are only interested in making sure that a Camp for kids could never again be so reckless and irresponsible. Most of them have plenty of money.

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So they'd settle for just a covenant from the Camp to never reopen? Or to implement certain safety protocols?


Guessing that is not the case, nor would their attorney go for it. Hard to take 40% of "we won't do it again"

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Hard to get "we won't do it again" for $1. And shouldn't someone pay if they were negligent and that caused a death?

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Hasn't the owner of this camp already paid the ultimate price himself?

Hagen95 said:

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jt16 said:

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Im Gipper said:

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Quote:

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Agree. And Iknow several of the families. They are only interested in making sure that a Camp for kids could never again be so reckless and irresponsible. Most of them have plenty of money.

---

So they'd settle for just a covenant from the Camp to never reopen? Or to implement certain safety protocols?


Guessing that is not the case, nor would their attorney go for it. Hard to take 40% of "we won't do it again"

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Hard to get "we won't do it again" for $1. And shouldn't someone pay if they were negligent and that caused a death?

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Hasn't the owner of this camp already paid the ultimate price himself?

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If I remember correctly, the property was owned by a trust, foundation or LP. Dick and Tweety were the operators. He is dead. She is alive. As is the case, there will be numerous other defendants that will be pulled into this.


Edit: Property owned by Natural Fountains Properties, Inc, a company set up to own the land separate from the camp business.

Im Gipper said:

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From the case cited by twk above:

Quote:

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When an injured invitee asserts a premises-liability claim, she must show that the owner or occupier had actual or constructive knowledge of a condition that posed an unreasonable risk of harm and did not exercise reasonable care to reduce or eliminate the risk and that such failure proximately caused her injury.

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So as aggiehawg and BMX Bandit explained, the property owner must protect visitors from dangerous conditions, either by eliminating or warning. The case goes on to explain why the rising water was not a dangers condition on the property.



https://case-law.vlex.com/vid/walker-ex-rel-estate-889806200

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You and I are arguing the same side. My response was to somebody comparing the RV Park to the hotel and what I was asserting was that they had no duty to "protect" their guests from things outside of their control...like floods or tornados. Yes, they have the duty to provide a safe site and amenities that are within their control, but rising water from a river that was not on their site is outside of their control or responsibility to "protect" anybody from.

Heartbreaking thing is - there is a hill just to the southeast of the cabins that flooded.

A flood warning fog horn, tied into the emergency alert system, could have gotten all the girls out of their cabins and up that hill within about 10 minutes. The whole emergency setup might have cost $1,000.

They could have drilled for that their first day at camp.

Did the camp keep secrets of where the kids were staying? Were parents unaware that the sleeping quarters were near the river? Some things are no one's fault.

Quote:

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it seems to "vehemently disagree" with his opinion

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Wrong.

It establishes that your position was incorrect. The RV park owner does in fact owe certain duties.

Sharpshooter said:

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Lawyers are a blight on society.

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Until you're pissing your pants because colossally you ****ed up.

Then you're kissing their ass. FACT.

schmellba99 said:

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And how do you "reasonably" prepare for a flood that saw a 32 foot rise in the river level in literally minutes?

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Move the cabins near the river to a higher elevation. Like they've been advised to do for quite some time.

***Speaking to Mystic's situation, not the RV park.

I am somewhat more sympathetic to an argument about some culpability for a children's camp but a river where the camp is hosting and assuming some level of guardianship of the children versus a camp where adults rent sites and chose of their own free will how close they are willing to set up camp to a river, and if they will chose to stay or leave if the weather increases the flood risk. There, I expect and reasonable adults to have learned that rivers can flood and sometimes dramatically and that risk is never zero near a riverbank.

fc2112 said:

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Heartbreaking thing is - there is a hill just to the southeast of the cabins that flooded.

A flood warning fog horn, tied into the emergency alert system, could have gotten all the girls out of their cabins and up that hill within about 10 minutes. The whole emergency setup might have cost $1,000.

They could have drilled for that their first day at camp.

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maybe something as simple as training the counselors on what to do in a flood emergency? or keeping life jackets in the cabins. or even possibly allowing the counselors who are in charge of little 8 year old girls to keep a cell phone on them in case of emergencies???

Im Gipper said:

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Quote:

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it seems to "vehemently disagree" with his opinion

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Wrong.

It establishes that your position was incorrect. The RV park owner does in fact owe certain duties.

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We are arguing the same side, which became apparent once you explained your position. There is a difference between a legal requirement to "provide" a safe and sanitary facility and a legal requirement to "protect" people from risks that originate outside of the facility.