Court Backs Six Flag in Fall suite
Court Backs Six Flag in Fall suite
The Missouri Court of Appeals Eastern District held on June 20 that a Six Flags attendee who tripped and was injured after running from a scary clown at the amusement park’s Fright Fest cannot sue the park.
Interesting brief I ran across from a month ago. Someone was scared by an actor at fright fest, ran away, and in doing so they tripped and fell and later sued Six Flags because of the action. I can kind of see how this could be somewhat controversial but at the end of the day the decision to side with Six Flags seems reasonable (though I admittedly haven't read the whole case).
I'm curious how everyone else feels. Do you think this is an inherent risk guests need to be aware or do you think Six Flags should have some responsibility?
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Without reading the case as well, the arguments in your linked article are that the person attending was there for fright, and the analogy given is similar to someone suffering a baseball related injury at a baseball game. Similarly, ski resorts are not liable for ski related injuries unless the resort acted negligently.
As a general theme park fan, I have my problems with Six Flags operations and generally believe they operate rides negligently, maintain the park negligently, and cut costs where they really should not. That being said, having been to many of their fright fest attractions, the staff are very cautious of crossing any unsafe lines. It makes their Halloween attractions relatively tame compared to the competition. Specifically to this case, they explicitly make it clear that you can’t touch the scare actors and they can’t touch you. So choosing to run when someone gets close is a personal decision, coupled with the point of attending an explicit fright attraction, the ruling makes perfect sense to me.
Yea this is pretty much where I fall.... Although I do believe that Six Flags runs their rides safe but would agree that they don't properly maintain them for comfort/experience (same as most chain parks). But yea, I think the touching thing is the big differentiator..... You were there to be scared and you were scared and your actions were what resulted in the fall.