mom perches baby on ledge to take pic, baby falls to death, mom suing Staples Center

[Liberal_in_LA]

Mom was taking photo as baby boy fell to death

A woman whose 2-year-old son fell to his death following a Los Angeles Lakers game says she put him on a ledge to take a photo of him.

City News Service reports Monday that Hoia Mi Nguyen told defense attorneys in a deposition that she wanted to capture the moment of baby Lucas Tang's attendance at the Nov. 21, 2010 game.

The baby died after falling 50 feet from a luxury box. Nguyen is suing the managers of Staples Center for wrongful death and negligence.


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2012/06/18/state/n184848D64.DTL#ixzz1yG9quejl

[atreides1]

1. WTF

People get nuttier every day, don't they?

[Puzzledtraveller]

2. Horrifying

I see kids who's parents aren't paying attention in grocery markets, as the baby, toddler, is climbing out of the seat, cart swaying, one hit to the head on that hard floor and that's it. I saw this about to happen once and my instinct kicked in and stopped the child, the parent angry at me for interfering.

[Arugula Latte]

8. I see that too. Little kids standing up in grocery carts, leaning over the side ...

All it takes is one head or spine injury to change that family's life forever.

[ejpoeta]

47. my kids stand up in the cart. not that I want them to. but i guess the difference is

that I would not blame the store if i put my kid in the back of the cart and they stood up and ended up getting hurt. the only time I could see it is when I can't find a cart with a seat belt in it. My little one kept climbing up every time I'd turn for a minute to put something in the cart. I did say something to the workers there, not a threat just letting them know that they might want to fix the seat belts in the carts.

My sister used to work at the service desk at walmart and was safety manager. she'd tell me all kinds of stories. walmart is another store it's hard to find a seat belt that isn't broken. But Abby can climb up even with the seatbelt now.

[aquart]

19. The mother put the kid on the ledge. Deliberately. Then let go to take a picture.

This is Darwin one step removed.

[Control-Z]

37. "....said she wasn't concerned

when perching her baby on the ledge because fans typically sit, stand or climb on it."

[LisaL]

40. Only her child, at 2 years old, was not in control of his motor skills.

[Control-Z]

44. That was my point.

I should have been more clear. And Staples should be suing HER for negligence and stupidity.

When my kids even try to sit on a ledge, balcony rail, etc. that is 2nd story or higher, they hear from me, and not in a nice way. (and they're not even little kids)

[whatchamacallit]

43. "Spiderman stands on it all the time, so..."

I'm sorry for her loss, but what a shit mom!

[Control-Z]

45. I agree.

I think my post was poorly written. I was trying to point out her stupidity.

[whatchamacallit]

46. Your post was fine

I was taking aim at her "reasoning".

[teddy51]

3. She should be in prison for stupidity, not suing anyone. Jeez, how stupid.

[valerief]

5. Absolutely. She must be a 1%er. Why are 2-year-olds allowed there anyway? nt

[HiPointDem]

24. "from a luxury box."

[Risen Demon]

4. And she'll win...

...and the winger networks will it as propaganda for "why businesses suffer so much"

ugh

[yardwork]

32. She will not win. The case will be thrown out, but the wingers will complain anyway.

[hifiguy]

35. Not a chance she will win. Zero.

She created the hazard, not Staples Center.

[Politicalboi]

6. I'm not for Corps winning

But this crazy woman belongs in jail for at least 20 years. I would look at it as intentional on her part. I have no kids, but I would NEVER put a baby or even an older child near the edge like that. I don't understand why she isn't in jail for child endangerment, and murder.

[jorno67]

7. Can somebody tell me why she isn't making license plates?

stupid!!!

[LisaL]

18. I dunno.

Why hasn't she been charged?

[siligut]

9. It will be thrown out

She lives in a fantasy world.

[Odin2005]

10. And this litigious BS is why everyone is terrified of getting sued.

[Meiko]

11. Let's change that shall we.

Mother charged with manslaughter after negligently allowing her 2 year old son to fall to his death from an unguarded ledge. She is being held without bail

That sounds better.

[Blue_Tires]

12. um...yeah -- WHY the fuck isn't she in jail for negligence?

what's the difference between this and the baby-left-in-hot-car parents who go to prison?

and why has her official story changed from an earlier suit?

http://laist.com/2012/04/27/parents_of_toddler_who_fell_to_his.php

"According to initial reports from the accident scene, Lucas Tang's parents were reviewing pictures on their digital camera when they lost track of the boy, who somehow crawled over the glass partition and fell 50 feet to his death."

[FLSurfer]

16. Good question. Maybe those baby-left-in-hot-car parents

should have been proactive and filed a lawsuit with the car manufacturers before they were charged with a criminal offense.

[gregoire]

20. "crawled over the glass partition"

And that is why Staples is liable. If a two year-old can climb over the wall, then it was too short.

[LisaL]

22. By her own admission she put her kid onto the ledge to take his photo.

[Blue_Tires]

26. actually, she's given two different accounts of what happened

and I don't think staples is liable no matter what story she and her attorneys cook up

[Jim Lane]

42. It's not clear that SHE changed her story.

Your linked article refers to "initial reports from the accident scene," which suggests to me that the reports were from bystanders rather than being her "official" story.

On the version of the accident that you cite, she probably has at least a colorable case. If she didn't deliberately put the kid in danger, but merely lost track of him momentarily, and if the protective partition was so low that a two-year-old could crawl over it, that sounds like negligence on the part of the Staples Center. It's foreseeable that, every now and then, a toddler will be crawling around unsupervised, for one reason or another, so the facility owner should exercise reasonable care to protect against a fall of this sort.

Of course, Staples can argue in defense that the mother was negligent in losing track of the kid. There are many accidents that occur because of more than one party's negligence. I don't know California law on comparative negligence, but it would probably be up to a jury to allocate the culpability, by assigning a percentage to each party and making sure the percentages add up to 100. In general, in a case like this, even parental negligence wouldn't be a superseding cause that would get the Staples Center off the hook.

If she deliberately put the kid on the ledge, she obviously has a much tougher case. Staples Center must exercise reasonable care but isn't a guarantor of everyone's safety. There's no system that's completely idiot-proof. Nevertheless, the mother might still have a chance if, for example, the Building Code requires that there be netting under luxury boxes, and there wasn't.

[Quantess]

13. I'll bet you anything

she was going to put the photo of baby at the Lakers game on facebook. Hoping to get a bunch of "likes".

[FreeJoe]

14. Forget Staples

She should be suing Isaac Newton and his descendents for his discovery of gravity.

[Marrah_G]

15. I'm soorry she lost her child

She has alot of nerve suing the venue for her stupidity- she is lucky she isn't in jail.

[uponit7771]

17. Hmmm, 2yr old crawling over a pony wall?!...hmmm, I'll wait...he shouldn't have been there but...

...he shouldn't have allowed to be there either by Stadium people.

I just wonder how he got over the pony wall....

[LisaL]

23. Do actually read the OP you are responding to, will ya?

[barbtries]

21. who's suing her? nt

[rufus dog]

25. First thing

The mother was just stupid.

Second thing, I am shocked that this hasn't happened more often. Look to the left of the usher in the picture. The rail is in the middle of the stairs, four of them, and there is no glass!

I used to work for a company that had a box at Staples, spent most nights standing at the top of the stairs ready to grab a falling customer. Concerts were a nightmare, people getting ripped and one misstep would cause a person to fall. Unless the person went straight down there was nothing to stop them other than a two to two and 1/2 foot wall.

[slackmaster]

27. The view from those boxes must be terrific

[rufus dog]

51. Meh!

Problem is you have to watch the Lakers!

[Liberal_in_LA]

50. Seats at Dorothy Chandler are like that. tilted steeply upward so everyone can see. One wrong step

and you'd be tumbling down those stairs

[NC_Nurse]

28. Oh FFS! What a moron! She's lucky she hasn't been charged with manslaughter.

Some people don't need to be parents.

[WI_DEM]

29. I just have to wonder if she did that on purpose hoping the baby would fall

and then trying to sue to get $$

[RebelOne]

30. At the Miami Serpentarium, I remember a little boy being put on a wall

by his father to take a photo. Beneath that wall was a pit with a giant crocodile. The boy fell into the pit and the croc devoured the boy. The article does not tell the whole story of what happened. It just said that the boy fell in. The Miami Herald reported the real story and it was the father's fault.

In my opinion, it was the father who should have been shot and not the croc. It just thought it was thrown dinner.

I had visited the Sepemtarium a few times and I saw that crocodile and it was indeed massive.

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jun/21/local/la-me-bill-haast-20110621

The attraction had a gift shop, 400-pound turtles, a 20-foot python. It also had a pit with a 12-foot crocodile called Cookie who weighed, literally, a ton. After a 6-year-old boy fell in and died in 1977, Haast went into the pit with a pistol the next day and shot the croc.

[Liberal_in_LA]

38. how horrific!

[Quantess]

48. That is wrong.

Of course the crocodile thought it was being fed! People buy baby chicks or mice to feed domesticated reptiles, and and when the reptiles get bigger they get fed kittens. Reptiles like live, animated, and moving, "meals", from what little I know.

I hope the crocodile died instantly. It wasn't the crocodile's fault.

[RebelOne]

49. Yes, I owned boa constrictors and I fed them live rats and mice.

Never anything like kittens. That is a revolting thought. I finally got rid of them when they got so big that rats and mice were not enough, and I was not going to feed them rabbits, so I donated them to the Miami-Dade Community College hands-on clinic for kids.

[Quantess]

52. I appreciate the circle of life and all that, but, I think it's gross when it involves pets.

I acquired a bunch of button-quail chicks, raised them to young adults, and advertised them on craigslist for free. Someone called and asked me how big they were, etc, and if I would mind if their snake ate them? That was the honest thing to ask, I suppose. But I told them that no, I was giving them away in my "specially selected" male-female pairs only, and they were not for snake food. I thought that excuse up while I sat on the phone with her, and then I kept that policy for real. I re-wrote my craigslist ad and was more diligent about who got the little paired birds in their possession. There were a couple of leftovers that I just let fly loose. Goodbye!

[Egalitarian Thug]

31. Kill your child through gross negligence, go for a payday.

The cereal state.

[sinkingfeeling]

33. Maybe another relative of the child could sue her for wrongful death and negligence.

[dembotoz]

34. i am not good with heights so perhaps i am hyper sensitive

but lots of stadiums have hazards for deadly falls if people are stupid

include in my experience --Lambeau field and Miller park in Milwaukee

talking escalators--open air site lines--

if a parent puts their child in harms way
shit can happen

only safe place is at home in front of the flat screen
as long as that doesn't tip over and crush them......

[ProfessionalLeftist]

36. This Mom is an idiot.

While I am sympathetic that she lost her child, she has no one to blame but herself.

[spanone]

39. SHE is suing? God should be suing her.

[GarroHorus]

41. Pretty much an open and shut case of child endangerment

She should do time.