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Motorcyclist wrecks after hitting pothole. State of Ohio pays him $300k.


Casper

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If the pothole was large enough, and if it had actually been there long enough to put the DOT on notice of a dangerous condition, I don't think it's a terrible policy decision.

If we're talking about a small pothole that he should have been easily able to avoid, or one that should not have caused him to lose control, then it's BS.

But if Elmo has taught us anything lately, it's that settling is sometimes cheaper than fighting in court, even when you're right.

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1.2mil? He must be a vegetable...

Nope.....I had shoulder surgery that was outpatient, and was in the hospital "tops" for 6 hours. That came out to a whopping $33k, so 1.2 million is very very doable. Oh and the amount of time that has passed for this poor guy to finally win his claim.......fucking ridiculous. :rolleyes:

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Usually I'd say that's dumb, but with 1.2million in medical costs I'm ok with the state ponying up a bit.

After all, our taxes are us paying for a service. If the roads were privately owned and we paid some sort of membership we'd also expect the roads to be safe. Having said that, if he didn't incur all those bills and profitted from this then I'd have a different opinion. Sounds like all of the money went to the hospital and or insurance company.

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Usually I'd say that's dumb, but with 1.2million in medical costs I'm ok with the state ponying up a bit.

After all, our taxes are us paying for a service. If the roads were privately owned and we paid some sort of membership we'd also expect the roads to be safe. Having said that, if he didn't incur all those bills and profitted from this then I'd have a different opinion. Sounds like all of the money went to the hospital and or insurance company.

And 5 years' worth of lawyer fees.

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If the DOT was aware of the risk created by that specific pothole and did not take reasonable steps to mitigate that risk then they are liable.

If the pothole opened up recently enough that the DOT had no reasonable opportunity to fix it then they're in the clear. It's all about knowledge of a risk and failure to mitigate.

Same thing happens in supermarkets - a slip/fall generally only becomes the store's problem if they were aware, or should have been aware, of the dangerous condition and did not take reasonable steps to mitigate the risk. If you slip on something that's only been on the floor for a couple of minutes then, well, sorry 'bout your luck. Maybe you can get a nuisance settlement. If you slip on something that's been there an hour and has been reported to the staff... Then the store is clearly negligent.

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