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Kid plays on headstone and it topples over and kills him

moshquerade

moshquerade

No Lifer
Parents of boy crushed by headstone sue cemetery

Dec. 19, 2008, 10:33PM

The parents of a 2-year-old boy who was crushed to death by a headstone at a funeral last week have filed a lawsuit against the Pearland cemetery.

Giovanni Rodriguez died Dec. 13 when police say a group of children may have been playing on the headstones at the Southpark Funeral Home-Cemetery-Crematory at 1310 North Main in Pearland.

The lawsuit alleges the funeral home operator was negligent for not making sure that the headstones were more stable.

"Giovanni died shortly before turning 3," said John Padilla, the Houston lawyer representing the parents.

"To me, it's intuitive. You shouldn't have these headstones around loose."

Padilla said his clients were too distraught to talk Friday about their son's death.

He said parents Francisco Rodriguez Cardenas and Maria De Los Angeles Yanez Laura filed the lawsuit Tuesday so the court could make sure that the evidence was not altered at the cemetery.

"We feel strongly the evidence will show there were numerous other headstones there not affixed to a base. Loose headstones pose an extreme risk to children, older people, even praying people who could reach up and touch one," Padilla said.

John Shipp, the Dallas-based lawyer for the Southpark funeral home and cemetery, said his client works to provide caring, quality service.

"We're deeply saddened by this tragic accident and offer the family our sincere condolences," Shipp said on behalf of Southpark, which is a part of Stewart Enterprises Inc.

Shipp would not comment specifically on the death since a lawsuit is pending.

Patty Goolsby of the Pearland Police Department said emergency crews were dispatched to the cemetery after receiving a 911 call.

Goolsby said the family was at a funeral service and "kids were jumping around on" the headstones nearby.

But Padilla said he has no evidence kids were playing on the headstones.

He said the boy did not die at the cemetery but later from injuries sustained there.

Padilla said he filed the lawsuit under a Texas law that requires reasonable care be taken to make a premises safe.

But he said, the United Kingdom and some other European countries have separate laws addressing headstone safety, though he didn't find anything like that in the United States.

Donald Burger, a Houston lawyer who lectures on Texas cemetery law, said the state has many regulations about health and safety at cemeteries.

"Some are even bizarre like that you can't bury a murderer near his victim if you have notice. But I have not come across cases on headstone liability in Texas," Burger said.

Bob Fells, general counsel for the Virginia-based International Cemetery, Cremation and Funeral Association, said he has seen a few cases involving children harmed by headstones in his 25 years with the group.

He said American privately owned cemeteries generally have insurance and know that checking headstone stability is part of maintenance.

He said cases like this may be won or lost based on the maintenance record and habits of the cemetery involved.
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http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6174253.html
 
Why does there always have to be "fault"? There *is* such a thing as an unfortunate accident. Generally speaking I'd say the parents are at fault but as a parent I know it's impossible to monitor your children every second of the day.
 
A 3 year old doesn't weight very much, so that headstone would have to be pretty unstable for a 3 year old to knock it over. I'd say not enough evidence to pass judgement at this time. The article mentions multiple kids were playing, but doesn't really get specific on what/who caused the headstone to fall over.
 
Originally posted by: SearchMaster
Why does there always have to be "fault"? There *is* such a thing as an unfortunate accident. Generally speaking I'd say the parents are at fault but as a parent I know it's impossible to monitor your children every second of the day.
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i agree, its an unfortunate accident and there doesnt always have to be a "fault"

just as unfortunate is the fact that people cant accept that and have to blame someone else for everything.

but im a parent as well...my kids sure as hell wouldnt be playing if they were at a funeral with me (a situation id try to avoid to start with)

 
I don't visit cemeteries very often but isn't it disrespectful for kids to be playing on graves and shit? If someone was playing on my grave I'd haunt them crazy-style.


Parents need to get control of their kids. SearchMaster; I agree there are accidents and you can't always watch your kids but when I was 4 if I was climbing on a gravestone my mom would probably have put me 6ft under.
 
Negligent parents. I cant even count the number of times stupid kids run around in my moms store and hurt themselves. It happened so many times that there is a huge fucking sign with bold red letters disclaiming any responsibility if parents let their kids go beyond the designated seating area.
 
When I read the last name, I was not surprised. Mexicans.

They let their kids do any damned thing they want - let them run wild and crazy all over the place and they won't start to discipline them until they are like 5 or so.

So you have a bunch of unruly kids doing stupid shit because their parents won't enforce any sort of rules when they are that young.

100% parents fault for allowing it.
 
Originally posted by: Numenorean
When I read the last name, I was not surprised. Mexicans.

They let their kids do any damned thing they want - let them run wild and crazy all over the place and they won't start to discipline them until they are like 5 or so.

So you have a bunch of unruly kids doing stupid shit because their parents won't enforce any sort of rules when they are that young.

100% parents fault for allowing it.
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Hate to agree with you and sound racist but 99% of the time, the incidents at my moms store is with black or spanish parents and their kids. They seem the most eager to sue and are easily pleased with a small settlement. Asian and white parents will scream at their kids before their kids even think to move.
 
I'm surprised too, because usually Mexicans tend to be Catholic, and they have an extraordinary sense of faith and respect in their religious principals. Thats a pretty sweeping generalization, sure, but I have noticed it quite a bit.

Also, here in SoCal, I noticed a lot of unruly Asian kids running around, while the Latinos and Mexicans tended to be very well disciplined relative to their age. I guess it depends where you are/income in the are, although the two aren't directly related at all, there is a tendency.
 
I think it's more a product of economics than race. I grew up in a lower middle class neighborhood in the midwest and I can assure you it's not that white/asian people just raise their kids better because of core values.
 
I think we should blame G:sun:d or the D:evil:vil for this.

But certainly not the ignorant breeders who have better things to do at a funeral than control their kids, hell no! :roll:

Or maybe just blame GRAVELINGS.
 
Originally posted by: MagicConch
I think it's more a product of economics than race. I grew up in a lower middle class neighborhood in the midwest and I can assure you it's not that white/asian people just raise their kids better because of core values.
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I love the juxtaposition between your post and TehMac's post.

In regards to the negligence. There's probably comparable negligence between the two parties as both are somewhat at fault.
 
Originally posted by: TehMac
I'm surprised too, because usually Mexicans tend to be Catholic, and they have an extraordinary sense of faith and respect in their religious principals. Thats a pretty sweeping generalization, sure, but I have noticed it quite a bit.

Also, here in SoCal, I noticed a lot of unruly Asian kids running around, while the Latinos and Mexicans tended to be very well disciplined relative to their age. I guess it depends where you are/income in the are, although the two aren't directly related at all, there is a tendency.
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Can't say I have a ton of experience with mexican/latino kids but I'ved lived in the South as well as the Northwest and from my experiences, black kids are far more unruly compared to asian or white kids. But I agree with MagicConch that a lot of that likely has to do with socialeconomic and education levels
 
:laugh:

I guess it's not funny, but WTF?

Clearly, it's the cemetery's fault. 😕
 
Originally posted by: Numenorean
When I read the last name, I was not surprised. Mexicans.

They let their kids do any damned thing they want - let them run wild and crazy all over the place and they won't start to discipline them until they are like 5 or so.

So you have a bunch of unruly kids doing stupid shit because their parents won't enforce any sort of rules when they are that young.

100% parents fault for allowing it.
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Yep.

Here where we live, the (immigrant) Mexican kids run wild with zero parental supervision.

However, when their 15 year old daughter gets pregnant, or their 16 year old son gets arrested for murder, all of a sudden they're "wonderful, caring parents." :roll:

One former neighbor let his son do any dammed thing he wanted to. "He's my son, How can I discipline him for growing up?"

Then the kid got arrested for car theft...and, of course, it wasn't HIS fault...it was the fault of society.

I hate to say it, but I was happy when the dad got busted for his 8th DUI and went to jail for 90 days...and they lost the house and moved.
 
Originally posted by: moshquerade

"To me, it's intuitive. You shouldn't have these headstones around loose."
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To me it's intuitive, you shouldn't let your kids play on tombstones. That's incredibly disrespectful. I wonder how the thing got knocked over though. A tombstone that is big enough to be knocked over onto a kid would be very heavy. Even if there was a much older kid playing on the tombstone too (10 yrs old?) I think it'd have to be on pretty shaky ground to be knocked over.
 
My middle school has a cemetery behind it and people used to sneak out there through a hole in the fence. They didn't do anything stupid like climb on gravestones though, they just smoked weed.
 
Originally posted by: Mo0o
Originally posted by: TehMac
I'm surprised too, because usually Mexicans tend to be Catholic, and they have an extraordinary sense of faith and respect in their religious principals. Thats a pretty sweeping generalization, sure, but I have noticed it quite a bit.

Also, here in SoCal, I noticed a lot of unruly Asian kids running around, while the Latinos and Mexicans tended to be very well disciplined relative to their age. I guess it depends where you are/income in the are, although the two aren't directly related at all, there is a tendency.
Click to expand...

Can't say I have a ton of experience with mexican/latino kids but I'ved lived in the South as well as the Northwest and from my experiences, black kids are far more unruly compared to asian or white kids. But I agree with MagicConch that a lot of that likely has to do with socialeconomic and education levels
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I have to agree. I'm not racist at all, but Mexican families and their litters of unruly children boggle my mind and make me quite angry at times.

It's much different here in the desert SW, but up in Oregon - when my ex was working in the mall, it was always Mexican children that would come in and destroy her store - their parents didn't give a shit.
 
Originally posted by: glutenberg
Originally posted by: MagicConch
I think it's more a product of economics than race. I grew up in a lower middle class neighborhood in the midwest and I can assure you it's not that white/asian people just raise their kids better because of core values.
Click to expand...

I love the juxtaposition between your post and TehMac's post.

In regards to the negligence. There's probably comparable negligence between the two parties as both are somewhat at fault.
Click to expand...

Thing is; in my area, there are lots of rich kids who are growing up with golden spoons in their mouths. Alot of my friends are very rich, and I respect them. Alot of other richos are very rude, inconsiderate, self entitled, self satisfied boors.

I'm friends with a lot of Mexicans, or I used to be, and they tend to be very quiet, self composed, perhaps not the most studious, but certainly are rambunctious, but not ill-intentioned.

Now, there are plenty of Latinos/Mexicans at my school who I know are involved in gangs. A good friend of mine, or he used to be, stole a lot of shit, got caught, and is most likely now in jail.
Before anyone tries to indict me, I found out about the stealing shit from his/my friends about a year later.


So it can go both ways. Alot of rich kids think they need to steal too, what it really boils down to is the core values of the Parents and the child's environment at school and home.

I hung out with alot of punks, and my grades suffered. When I pulled my act together I found these punks less attractive to hang around, still am acquaintances, but I dont really hang out with them.

I am a firm proponent in moderate forms of corporal punishment, or at least negative reinforcement, but I find punishment to be dished out best between the ages of 4-7, and negative reinforcement after, etc.

I can only speak from my own observations and experience, so obviously, take it with a grain of salt.

As for the Black people, well I have found the blacks at my school to not be very studious, I did know one dude who was, but everyone thought he was gay 🙂roll🙂 but they certainly are behaved, well, sort of, but I think what it simmers down to is this:
People behave the way society expects them to. Blacks have this stigma about them, you know. Kids really want to show they're not racist, etc. So there's a sort of awkward expectation that the black kid has to be a real badass, especially compounded with this rap music and hiphop crap, although that's been toned down as well.

Society needs to encourage people to not be so different in terms of being the most badass how low your pants can sag, how amazing it is to talk like a neanderthal, but to be unique in terms of mental prowess and/or physical skills.

This social encouragement is very slow, and I'm afraid it might not even happen in this century.

 
Another dumbass law suit involving negligent moronic parents. Give me a break, kids playing on headstone? Discipline your damn kids.
 
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