Commentary by Adam Aasen
Sprain your ankle playing basketball at the Monon Center? Slip and fall on the concrete at the city’s outdoor water park? Cut your foot on a rock at nature trail? Well, it might not mean a big paycheck in your future.
It’s a regular occurrence every month, but Carmel Clay Parks and Recreation receives tons of tort claims from its visitors who claim the parks department should compensate them for their injuries.
And some of them might seem a tad silly.
Look at June’s monthly report and you’ll find claims filed such as a 6-year-old who was hit by a golf club by another child, a toddler who fell off a toddler slide at the waterpark and a child who chipped his tooth when another child swung his coat and hit him in the mouth with a zipper.
Parks Director Mark Westermeier said he legally can’t go into the specifics of any claim. While he doesn’t want to dismiss anyone’s claims or concerns, he believes there might be a sense among people that anytime you are injured that someone else must pay for it.
“There’s a myth in America that if you get hurt on somebody’s property that they have to pay,” he said. “In order to pay somebody for the injury, you had to do something negligent.”
That means the parks department must have created the problem, such as failing to maintain exercise equipment that breaks downs and injuries someone. But even in that extreme circumstance, everyone signs waivers when they use these facilities. The risks are made known to everyone beforehand.
“There’s an inherent risk at going to a swimming pool. There’s an inherent risk when you drive a car,” Westermeier said. “If it’s truly an accident, that’s what it is. Sometimes I think people watch too much TV and they get these ideas.”
This year, I sprained my ankle pretty badly playing basketball at the Monon Center. I am a 30-year-old man trying to run up and down the court with teenagers so I tried to make up for my athletic deficit through “hustle points.” Well, I leapt for a rebound and my ankle audibly popped. The next day, it was as purple as an eggplant.
I didn’t try to file a claim or sue because I was injured on their property. It was my fault for not wrapping my ankle beforehand and for thinking I could ball with the kids.
Now I’m not belittling anyone’s claim because I haven’t done the research on each and every case and I’m sure some of them are legitimate. But most of them are not.
In fact, Westermeier said nearly all of these claims are rejected. So my advice for people is to accept that accidents are a part of life and just because there is an injury means that someone else has to pay for it.
These things happen and there’s no need to waste the parks department’s time over a scraped knee from a water slide.
Adam Aasen is a reporter for Current in Carmel. Send comments to [email protected].
