The woman in America who is being sued for $132000 after her son knocked a statue over and broke it. Is she being unreasonable or is the venue?

[witchofzog]

I just saw this on This Morning. She went to a wedding venue with works of art on display. Cctv shows her son playing with the displays and the statue then toppling and breaking. The mum was nowhere near her son and it took nearly 2 minutes for her to come to him after the accident. She states the art work should have been secured better and her son was just being a 5 year old.

Who is unreasonable here?

I take back what I said that it looks like he bumped into it. He was actually trying to hug it!

However, my position still stands that its the venue at fault because somewhere like a leisure centre should have these things secured.

Kids do stupid things, luckily most of the time they don't end up with 132000 dollar invoices! Had it been in a museum or art gallery then I very much doubt the mother would have let her kids run around or even out of her sight.

When my ds, who is very much the same type, was 5 I was glued to his tail. I think both parties are in the wrong, the artwork should have been better secured as it could have happened to anyone. It was not secured enough considering the price tag connected to it. The mum is in the wrong for not monitoring her child.

The son didn't knock it down. He deliberately pulled it down. It was perfectly secure until he started pulling at it.

I know SoupDragon. But obviously, what actually happened is not the point here. This is a thread for blaming others.

Of course she is; allowing her child to "play" around expensive works of art.

In fairness they were in a leisure centre, not an art gallery. That's not to excuse her, but a leisure centre isn't necessarily a place where you'd expect to encounter expensive works of art.

Insurance company unsurprisingly reluctant to pay for the bad behaviour of an unruly little shite
Cricket, that's harsh on a kid. Most kids will run about, that's why they need to be supervised.

the woman is an irresponsible idiot.

5 years old is old enough to know not to touch things. He clearly climbed up on the plinth and was grabbing the statue breast and pulled it down.

I know the women sitting there wasn't the mum but the way they sat there when clearly the statue made a loud crash is lazy too not to see what is going on.

The mum clearly wasn't in the room so she was certainly very neglectful.

I know if I had dared behaved like that, I wouldn't have been able to sit down for a week.

From your description of say the mother is to blame...it's a wedding , she should have been supervising her kid and then it wouldn't have happened because she would have been there to stop it...it's an expensive lesson that will teach her to supervise her child and that if you break someone elses stuff you have to pay for it

I work in an art gallery and I think she was unreasonable BUT.....I am always hyper aware when smaller children come in and that's purely because about 5% of parents just let their tiny children do what they want.

I will always follow unattended children around a bit....if they run or act clumsily, then I will speak to them and ask them to move away from an area.

Then I will ask their parent or carer to hold their hand.

If they don't, then I ask them to leave. We'd never leave such an expensive piece so openly....but she was ultimately responsible for her child.

*I'd say, ...not... of say

From your description, both are at fault

The mother needs to teach her child some boundaries and supervise him better (because 5 year olds aren’t perfect and even the best behaved have lapses, but that’s when the supervising parents steps in and gets them back on track)

The venue should have insurance and should take steps to protect valuable exhibits

And if it had been an elderly art lover stumbling against the statue....whose fault then?

Art should have been better secured.

The mother should have been supervising her child more closely but ultimately responsibility for the art works lies with the museum.

It's their job to secure the artwork, to provide adequate security, and to have insurance in place for if something does go wrong. It's obviously not ideal for a parent to leave their child unsupervised but everyone makes mistakes or bad judgment calls. We can't live in a world where people get bankrupted and hounded for tens of thousands of pounds because of a simple mistake.

The insurance people are being unreasonable! They’re wiggling out of being up because they are b’tards... that’s what insurance is for. The art work needs to be better secured or encased if there’s danger of it being knocked by anyone - people trip, they faint, they stumble and yes small kids shouldn’t ‘run around’ in places like this but come on! Whichever of you hasn’t had your kid run or misbehave in public throw the first stone.

The child didn't stumble against it, he climbed up on the bloody thing and deliberately started to rock it.

According The the footage the kid stepped on the base to try and touch it and it toppled - he wasn’t ‘hugging’ it or ‘pulling’ it down he was trying to stop it falling on him.

Shhhh Iamagreyhoundhearmeroar, let's just have the argument assuming what actually happened isn't what happened. Facts-based arguments are rubbish.

The mother is at fault for not supervising her child. But the venue is rather silly not to have made the "art" more secure.

And if it had been an elderly art lover stumbling against the statue....whose fault then?

there is a big difference between a person of any age stumbling against something and a person of any age climbing up and deliberately manhandling it.

The video I saw very clearly shows him climbing on it and rocking it. The statue would not have fallen if a person had just stumbled into it.

In gulf between unreasonable and liable there is the law. The circumstances of how the child broke the statue makes the mother unreasonable, the fact that the art was unsecured makes it unlikely that she will be successful sued for 130k worth of damages.

I saw the CCTV video of the kid on the news,
he looked like a bull in a china shop. madly running about & deliberately trying to lift the artwork off their plinths. more than once.
The mother must have known her kid was running wild
She is responsible

If it had been a genuine accident then I doubt the insurance company would be pursuing this case which is why the what if...? comparison scenarios are pointless. It's a bit like how insurance won't pay out if your car's stolen because you left your keys in the ignition - you can't argue "but what if it had been broken into and stolen?" Likewise a child tripping and causing damage is not comparable to this case where they were left unsupervised.

I think the venue are being ridiculous. You can’t protect works of art by hoping that the public will be careful and vigilant around them. How naive

I wonder how they valued it so highly. And the insurance only won't get it repaired because the artist "has no desire" to repair it.

Seems like some dodgy dealings going on tbh