Duty, Breach, Causation, Damages

Those are the four elements of a negligence case. Each of these must be proven in an attempt recover on any claim for negligence. For example, a shopkeeper might have a leak on the roof and, even though he knows that it's dripping onto a puddle on the floor, he fails to even put up a sign. A few days (or hours) later, someone who does not see the puddle steps on it, slips, falls, and injures himself. The shopkeeper has a duty to keep the floors dry for customers. He failed to do so, thus breaching his duty. The customer slipped on the floor, suffering injuries.

Now, there are other claims that fall under inherently dangerous items - things that are going to be hazardous no matter how much care is used while handling them for their intended use. This would include items such as dynamite.

One family in New Jersey, has decided that Aluminum baseball bats qualify as well. An item that is dangerous, no matter how much care is being used while using them. They will file suit against the maker of the baseball bat, the store that sold the bat, and Little League Baseball for allowing the bat to be used in the game where their child was critically injured after being hit by a ball he pitched to a boy using the bat. The article is silent on whether the family is suing the batter. The crux of the argument is going to be that the game would be safer if the players used only wooden bats.

I understand the need to blame. I do. And I can only imagine what it must be like to deal with a child who has suffered such an unpredictable injury. They most certainly have my deepest sympathies and well wishes. But, I'm wondering how the family is going to get past summary judgment on this. I just don't see a causal connection. It was a freak accident, and there's absolutely no way (that I'm aware of) to show that their son would not have been injured had the batter been using a wooden bat (We're talking nanoseconds of difference in reaction time here for a batted ball to travel 60 someodd feet). This is a tragic accident, but at the end of the day, sometimes accidents just happen.