The manufacturer of the tree stand and the store who sold it to him may be liable because it appears that the stand may have been defectively designed and assembled. Further, the man’s ability to work and support his family in the future may be severely and permanently limited. If the stand turns out to be defective and unsafe after an examination by an engineer, we will proceed against the manufacturer and the store because only by answering such claims are companies forced to remove defective products from the marketplace, thereby preventing future, similar accidents.

Hunting Accident Products Liability- The Good and Bad About Lawyers and Lawsuits

THE GOOD AND THE BAD ABOUT LAWYERS (SOME) AND LAWSUITS

Autumn is by far my favorite season of the year. The cool weather and nature’s beautiful colors are a treat not to be overlooked. Autumn is also the time when hunters take to the woods (myself included), and unfortunately, a time when some hunters can be very seriously injured while in the field. Those injuries sometimes bring out the best, and also the worst, about lawyers and the legal system.
Case in point: I have recently been contacted about injuries two different hunters received while hunting. In the first case, I received a phone call from a Manhattan law firm about possibly representing a client of theirs from Kings County who was badly injured in a hunting accident in Groveland. According to this attorney, the client had a “can’t lose” case against the property owner. I was very skeptical about the “can’t lose” aspect of this case because New York has a law called the “Recreational Use Law”, which generally protects a landowner from suits by people injured on their property while engaging in recreational activities, such as hunting. I decided to meet with the man anyway.
As it turns out, the hunter actually was trespassing on the landowner’s property (the property was conspicuously posted), and was injured when he fell after climbing into a wooden tree stand he had never been in before, in the dark! After learning these facts from the hunter, I called the Manhattan lawyer back and told her there was no way I would ever represent a person on such a frivolous claim. I also told her I thought the case was a sure loser, and how rotten it was, as an upstate lawyer, to try to sue the landowner. Much to my surprise and disappointment, she already knew about the trespassing, etc., and was determined to find a lawyer to take the case anyway! This is the kind of nonsense that gives lawyers and the court system a bad name.
The other gentleman who called me fell out of a steel tree stand in Livingston County when it collapsed and he suffered multiple, very serious orthopedic injuries to his pelvis, spine, and limbs, resulting in numerous surgeries. The landowner is blameless, but the manufacturer of the tree stand and the store who sold it to him may be liable because it appears that the stand may have been defectively designed and assembled. Further, the man’s ability to work and support his family in the future may be severely and permanently limited. If the stand turns out to be defective and unsafe after an examination by an engineer, we will proceed against the manufacturer and the store because only by answering such claims are companies forced to remove defective products from the marketplace, thereby preventing future, similar accidents.
I hope you share my outrage with the actions of the first hunter (and lawyer), and my sympathy with the second hunter!


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