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?

And as another poster said the mother isn’t going to have £132k plus legal bills to deal with this

That’s her problem. The damage comes to £132k, she is responsible for it. It really is that simple, if she’d been watching her kid it wouldn’t have happened.

I confess to being clueless about art and prices and whatnot. It all seems a bit odd.

But what’s the point in suing someone who can’t pay? You’ve just lost your legal vows and gained nothing. Any decent lawyer would advise you of that

Legal fees not vows

I don’t know, especially with the US system as I don’t know how it works. Presumably the insurance company is trying to recoup their enormous loss caused by this woman’s foolishness.

She may not be able to pay $132K in a lump sum, but they could make payment arrangements, garnish her wages, put a lien on her house, etc.

Well she could also be a millionaire. But it’s not likely. I’m just wondering why so many posters think she’ll have an insurance company to deal with it.

It may have been a wedding venue but it was still a Community Centre (I've seen the video) not a high-end art gallery - one of the few places I think most parents would allow their child some leeway.

The child does seem to pull slightly st the statue but it was in no way secured or cordoned off and I think that would surely have been the venue's top priority in a place where there will be kids, especially if it genuinely cost £100,000!

I don't know how anyone expects someone to 'secure' a vase, or a sculpture.

Museum glue, closed cases/inaccessible displays and adequate invigilation. It would be nice if everyone's child behaved appropriately, but it's an unrealistic expectation. If the sculpture could be pulled down by a 5yo in a matter of seconds it quite clearly wasn't displayed safely. I actually think this incident will cost the venue much more in the long run than the amount they're trying to recoup from the child's family. In their shoes I'd be grovelling with apologies for the near miss and assuring the public we'd reviewed our installation procedures.

My DS would have done or tried to do this at 5. But that's why we wouldn't have left him alone in a museum.

From the initial description, I thought it was very crowded and she may not have seen him slip away and from the video, by the time she noticed he was gone it was too late. However it doesn't seem crowded so she could have followed him.
BUT that is a heavy sculpture and if the venue is allowing members of the public to have a (potentially drunken) event in the gallery they need to be looking at their risk assessment.
And a speedy preschooler could easily have got away within Mum's sight and knocked that over while she watched helplessly from the other side of the room, anyway.

We had a similar situation some years ago in France when DD (then about 8) broke a small statue in an art exhibition blush. She was right with us, and not touching, but stepped backwards, bumped into plinth and it toppled off!
This was my thought, or a tourist with a backpack, wedding guest gesticulating drunkenly... They need to secure heavy and valuable items.

To those saying the mothers insurance will pay- what kind of insurance would the mother have that would cover this?

It's normally part of your home insurance. Check it out.

If you haven't got liability insurance anywhere, I'd seriously consider getting it.

That wasnt the point I was making, the scenario with the elderly person falling against it would also been possible! So the venue should have secured it against anybody knocking it over. Clearly it wasn’t secure enough

The parents are to blame.

There were two children running round in that area before that sculpture got knocked off so it’s more luck than judgement that more damage wasn’t caused.

It’s not part of your home insurance as standard, every policy I’ve had I’ve had to specifically pay extra to insure events or belongings outside the home and have opted not to do so. Don’t know what American home insurances policies are like (although none of us do I guess)

So it's been confirmed both parents were there, but the media is just piling all parental responsibility onto the mother. Typical.

The kid was deliberately grabbing at the statue. His parents should have been in the same room as him. However the venue might have anticipated that a statue of a topless woman would come across as very inviting to some patrons and put it in a case.

For goodness sake, you put valuable works of art in a leisure centre with no curators! Or not adequately secured? Or apparently not insured! Question in this country would be whether it is reasonably foreseeable that young children could be about and presumably not on leads. That being the case, all exhibits should have been properly secured or watched like a hawk. Of course the mother should have been looking after her child better, but if a statue could be knocked over, presumably it COULD have happened in a second, even if in this case the child was unsupervised for longer. That being the case it could have fallen onto a child or caused injury. This is what insurance is for, but I bet the sloppy arrangements to keep the statue safe invalidated it.

According to the article the mother said:. “Our kids were well-supervised and well-behaved,” she said.

That is obviously not true from watching the videos. It may have taken seconds for the boy to pull the statue down, but he had been running around unsupervised and grabbing at its breasts for a fair while before the pulling off of the statue.

If your child breaks someu it is generally always your responsibility IMO. But if the item is massively high value, eg TV piece or piece of art, I'd hope it was insured as I wouldn't be able to afford it. Bit I would also see it as my responsibility.

Does the dimwit actually understand that it's on film?

OK just timed it. The boy's entire interaction with the sculpture from approaching it to it toppling took 11 seconds.

I think the mother is at fault for not supervising her no doubt 'spirited' child more closely but equally I'm having trouble believing the thing was worth as much as the artist is claiming. Anything genuinely of that value would surely have been in a glass case in a roped off area or had its own bodyguard.

I suspect the artist has heard the distant chiming of tills...

If parents in America cannot allow their attention to drift for 11 seconds without risking a lawsuit, I am going to diversify my production of precariously balanced art and manufacture retractable leads for kids. Mark the day, I'm going to be minted.

It seems to me that the Venue placed the Vase there knowing that someone would eventually knock it down so that they could claim insurance.

I would make them prove that that was not the case if I was the mother judging by the non existent securing of so the called valuable item.

The last time I went to the British Museum I was shocked at just how many children were touching exhibits even though there were notices asking people not to. Even when the parents could see them doing it, in almost every case nothing was said

I totally agree @mydog. I couldn’t believe the parents watching and some even taking bloody photos while their children climbed all over the Giant Scarab in the Egyptian Wing.

If parents in America cannot allow their attention to drift for 11 seconds without risking a lawsuit....

The 11 seconds was his actual interaction with the statue. He was undoubtedly running about before then.

To those saying the mothers insurance will pay- what kind of insurance would the mother have that would cover this?

It's normally part of your home insurance. Check it out.

Sorry this is nonsense. Many home insurance policies provide cover against the legal fees if you get sued. Not the actual amount to pay if you are found to have been at fault. And often the legal fees are no longer covered if it's found you were negligent. Why would any insurer provide cover for your liabilities if you've done something wrong?