Thursday, July 20, 2006

The Crassness of Greed

[Updated] A story out of Madison, WI reports that a 25 year old daughter is suing her parents for $75,000 because she slipped and fell on some ice breaking her ankle.

Maybe the parents should sue themselves for bad parenting for raising such an ingrateful and unthinking daughter who could commit the nice act of surprising her mother for her birthday and then the unthinkable act of suing them for $75,000. How did this girl turn out so self-centered and greedy that she would sue her own parents?

Maybe, on second thought, the parents should countersue their daughter for the eighteen or so years of backrent, food, clothing, emotional distress incurred by raising a teenager, and countless other things that encountered and endured along the road.

Maybe I am too old school, but I cannot imagine suing my parents for anything.
Of course, this may be an attempt to get insurance to pay legitimate medical bills which are covered by insurance. It is certainly not unthinkable that an insurance company would balk at doing what they are paid to do, since they are trying to keep all the money they can. If there was proper coverage, then the insurance company should pony up and save the taxpayers the time tying up the courts with this nonsense. If this is merely an insurance issue, that is a totally different picture.

However, my attorney friend did remind me of story where a daughter sued her mother for wrongful birth. I remember the story now, but cannot remember the details. (I suppose I could google it.) Several years ago, some children sued parents for "divorce." That was a bit strange. But it does prove that that children do sue parents.

Does my attorney friend have a view on this? [He did, and I edited my comments somewhat, since he leans towards this perhaps being an insurance issue.]

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

My take on this is that the daughter has some legitimate medical costs and the only way to get the insurance money is via a law suit

Anonymous said...

The story says that the plaintiff came to the home "to surprise her mother on her birthday in January 2005."

I'll bet both her mother and father are surprised now, for the story continues, "Her parents said that she can't prove the driveway was icy at the time or that their drainage system was faulty," so it seems that they are not sympathetic to her complaint. If she had medical costs associated with her injury, I'll bet their homeowner's insurance offered to pay something toward that. I'm no attorney, Larry, but the answer to your question is that the insurance is under no legal obligation to pay anyone anything until ordered by a court. They CAN make payments to avoid litigation, but they don't have to.

Here's some free legal advice: Since you cannot imagine suing your parents for anything, I urge you to sign a waver each time you visit your parents home, so that you and they are never are put in this difficult position.

Patrick Berryman said...

Larry,

I'm leaning toward anonymous on this. Often times the only way to get the insurance companies to the table is to file a suit. I also find it interesting that this story has no direct quotes from either the daughter or the parents. I don't want to read too much into that, but it may be they are all just letting the inefficient judicial process play itself out.

Pat