Simple as that. Read tesrhetrns
it here. And it was the insurance companies fighting each other anyhow, as it turns out, not the grandparents suing the pants off the quick-thinking girl who saved their grandchildren. And that b.s. about the girl being “too young” and “inexperienced” to babysit? That was all the insurance companies’ balderdash, too.
All’s well that ends well! L
It’s a funny thing about leaving your kids with a 12 year old these days. We do it all the time (we have a resident 12 year old with really good rates) but initially we wondered if it was okay. We wondered if there was a law about ages you can leave kids alone. It seemed most of what we found didn’t have a legislated age rather a suggestion of characteristics. I like that. And now our 12 year old is a hot commodity amongst our parent friends.
From the article, referring to the insurance company actions:
“They don’t need Kendall and Diane’s permission,” Durocher said. “They can sue whoever they like.”
Wow. Disgusting.
I can just see some executive in the Insurance Company calculating the cost of the PR disaster + cost of lawsuit vs. potential win * odds of winning (or settling with the other company).
Luckily the numbers worked out right. Because I’m sure “ethical” wasn’t in the equation.
Well, it’s good to know that it wasn’t the grandparents. Because that was really messed up. But more so that Aaliyah is can live a normal teenage life again.
Makes more sense that it was the insurance companies. But still, for the insurance company to sue without the consent of the policy holder is so “Big Brother”. This opens up questions on what else these insurance companies do with our policies behind our backs. But that’s another discussion.
I’m sure that you all have a clause in your insurance documents that allows your insurance company to sue in your name if the company has paid money it believes is someone else’s responsibility – person or another insurance company. It doesn’t matter at all if YOU think the other person is responsible; it’s if the insurance company believes someone else is responsible. Most lawsuits are (1) insurance companies fighting over which one is ultimately responsible (but done in the individuals’ names since insurance companies are not ever parties lawsuits) or (2) an individual suing the insurance company for something that they are rightly entitled to but the company won’t pay. Want to cut down on lawsuits in this country, get rid of insurance companies.
It might be interesting to note that in Canada, if you bring a lawsuit against another party and you lose, you are required to pay the legal expenses of the defendant. This is one of the things that keeps some of the ridiculous suing everyone over everything lower than the US. Although it might seem like an odd place to go for free range parents, lobbying your politicians for legal reform may be a path to consider, since it seems like much of the frenzy around requiring perfection in child-rearing is about getting sued.
In addition – There is also a clause in all of your insurance policies that REQUIRES you to cooperate with the insurance company in any lawsuit brought on your behalf by the insurance company to collect money it has paid – whether you believe the suit should be filed or not.
Donna, you’re probably right. One of my friends was visiting her parents. While there, her daughter tripped and fell, cutting her head and requiring a trip to the ER (she was not seriously injured, and is fine). This was a normal case of a child falling down–no big hazards, just daily life.
So my friend’s insurance company decided to sue the parents, and wanted my friend to tell them exactly where the accident happened. I said, “Really? What if you don’t remember? What if you’d been out for a walk and didn’t make a note of the address?”
When my son was a toddler, he fell at Barnes and Noble and hit his head on that train table and needed stitches. My insurance company asked me where it happens and how it happened, I told them it happened at Barnes and Nobel and that he was 2 years old and just tripped and hit his head wrong. They paid. No questions asked, and nobody sued anyone. Now that I think about it, that is rare.
But then look at the 5th comment down:
“I encourage all parents out there to not let their children babysit, this will happen again. It won’t make the headlines and the company will continue on with the lawsuit.”
Someone’s always got to be catastrophizing about something!
TD Insurance, eh? Funny how as soon as it becomes public which company it was, they drop charges. I have a TD Mastercard, and will be cancelling it and telling them why. Even though they dropped charges, they never should have raised them in the first place.
I thought this line:
“TD Insurance said it decided to drop the teen from the lawsuit after looking at “all the facts” of the case since it became public this week.”
was quite damning. They seem to be admitting they file suits willy-nilly without really considering “all the facts”. Of course, I’m sure they did consider all the facts at the time. It’s just that those facts didn’t include a PR disaster because of their reprehensible opportunism.