Horrible Story - but who's at fault?

chanel

Silver Member
Jun 8, 2009
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People's Republic of NJ
The families of three boys who died almost five years ago in the trunk of a car parked in one of their yards as Camden police searched for them have settled lawsuits against the city.

The families of 11-year-old Anibal Cruz, 6-year-old Daniel Agosto and 5-year-old Jesstin Pagan agreed to accept a total of $2.25 million.

The city was searched after the boys vanished June 22, 2005. But no one checked the trunk of the Toyota Camry parked in the Cruz family's yard. Officials found one officer looked quickly in the main part of the car, then moved on.

Toyota agreed last year to pay the family of each boy $100,000.

The latest settlements were made last month and first reported by The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Settlements Reached In Case Of 3 Who Died In Trunk - New Jersey 101.5 FM

The kids were the in the parents' car in the parents' yard. Because the police did not look there - the city is liable? The parents did not look there either.

Horrible, horrible tragedy but I don't get how the police or Toyota are responsible.

Comments?
 
Can someone explain - logically - how the hell the police are responsible for this? Does the phrase 'parental responsibility' mean nothing?

God Almighty. How the hell these people want to profit from the death of their children is beyond me.
 
The parents are at fault.

Indeed. The parents are at fault.

Why they didn't search their property and objects themselves before calling the police is beyond me.

When I was a wee girl, one of our neighboring families, (a very disorganized one that my mother couldn't stand; we weren't allowed to play at their house), called the police because the youngest daughter was missing. The whole neighborhood turned out and spent a couple of hours searching. We ended the search when the mother informed us that the girl was asleep in her bed.

Needless to say, the police were not amused.
 
The families of three boys who died almost five years ago in the trunk of a car parked in one of their yards as Camden police searched for them have settled lawsuits against the city.

The families of 11-year-old Anibal Cruz, 6-year-old Daniel Agosto and 5-year-old Jesstin Pagan agreed to accept a total of $2.25 million.

The city was searched after the boys vanished June 22, 2005. But no one checked the trunk of the Toyota Camry parked in the Cruz family's yard. Officials found one officer looked quickly in the main part of the car, then moved on.

Toyota agreed last year to pay the family of each boy $100,000.

The latest settlements were made last month and first reported by The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Settlements Reached In Case Of 3 Who Died In Trunk - New Jersey 101.5 FM

The kids were the in the parents' car in the parents' yard. Because the police did not look there - the city is liable? The parents did not look there either.

Horrible, horrible tragedy but I don't get how the police or Toyota are responsible.

Comments?

I agree, neither the police nor Toyota were to blame.
The children were likely to blame.
Yes a tragic event.
 
The families of three boys who died almost five years ago in the trunk of a car parked in one of their yards as Camden police searched for them have settled lawsuits against the city.

The families of 11-year-old Anibal Cruz, 6-year-old Daniel Agosto and 5-year-old Jesstin Pagan agreed to accept a total of $2.25 million.

The city was searched after the boys vanished June 22, 2005. But no one checked the trunk of the Toyota Camry parked in the Cruz family's yard. Officials found one officer looked quickly in the main part of the car, then moved on.

Toyota agreed last year to pay the family of each boy $100,000.

The latest settlements were made last month and first reported by The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Settlements Reached In Case Of 3 Who Died In Trunk - New Jersey 101.5 FM

The kids were the in the parents' car in the parents' yard. Because the police did not look there - the city is liable? The parents did not look there either.

Horrible, horrible tragedy but I don't get how the police or Toyota are responsible.

Comments?

Not all 3 kids were from the same family.

I think toyota should sue the toyota owner for not following the User Manual for vehicle inspection and bad publicity and the City should sue the families for lost revenue from future taxpayers by letting their kids die.

Sick sarcasm but it's no less asinine than parents getting paid 7 figures for their failure to know where their kids were.

Too bad Michael Jackson died. He probably could have found them if the City announced it was legal to pick up boys who weren't with their parents.
(okay.....tacky as fuck....but what do you expect when I have no idea how to respond to such a fuxxing mess?)
 
The parents are at fault.

Indeed. The parents are at fault.

Why they didn't search their property and objects themselves before calling the police is beyond me.

When I was a wee girl, one of our neighboring families, (a very disorganized one that my mother couldn't stand; we weren't allowed to play at their house), called the police because the youngest daughter was missing. The whole neighborhood turned out and spent a couple of hours searching. We ended the search when the mother informed us that the girl was asleep in her bed.

Needless to say, the police were not amused.

My mom lost me once, they searched the whole house, and the whole neighborhood. I was asleep between the bed and the wall on the A/C vent. :lol:
My mom never called the cops. lol
 
This is like the babies dying from choking on the blinds, and now the companies have to change their design because 5 babies died. It is said they died, but who puts blinds by their babies beds? And why did they not notice? When my son was a baby, I knew enough to not have any choking hazards near him or his bed, and I also checked on him often.
 
Come to think of it, my mom lost me a lot. In her defense, there was six of us, with four being boys. :lol:
I am lucky to be alive.
 
I'm one of five, so my odds of survival were a bit better.

:)
 
Interesting We all agree. I wonder if this is a Jersey thing. Just pay the settlement to make people feel better. After all - its just taxpayer money. No wonder we are in such a mess.
 
There's not much info in the link, I wonder if there was a question of a defect or something to that effect which led to the Toyota settlement?

As far as the police owing the family, I'm racking my brain trying to come up with a semi-reasonable explanation for that, but not coming up with a scenario. The only thing that comes to mind is the police telling the parents that the car had been thoroughly searched, leading to them not checking themselves; even then I can't imagine them not checking anyway, but it might be enough to justify a penalty against the police department.

Other than my stretching for explanations, I agree with the sentiments expressed here already, the fault (if blame is to be assigned for what sounds like a tragic accident) lies with the parents for not checking themselves.
 
There's not much info in the link, I wonder if there was a question of a defect or something to that effect which led to the Toyota settlement?

As far as the police owing the family, I'm racking my brain trying to come up with a semi-reasonable explanation for that, but not coming up with a scenario. The only thing that comes to mind is the police telling the parents that the car had been thoroughly searched, leading to them not checking themselves; even then I can't imagine them not checking anyway, but it might be enough to justify a penalty against the police department.

Other than my stretching for explanations, I agree with the sentiments expressed here already, the fault (if blame is to be assigned for what sounds like a tragic accident) lies with the parents for not checking themselves.

Some good, solid comments here. I join with the first one - there HAS to be more to this story.

But 2.5M for the loss of children the ages of these children? On what basis? The ususal basis for determining damages for loss of a relative/loved one has to do with the earning ability of the deceased. Children of that age have zero earning ability, therefore, they are worth zero. The surviving parents must demonstrate how much they have been financially damaged by the loss of their children. Since the children were (presumably) contributing nothing to the family income, it would (presuambly) be very difficult for the parents to show anything.

When a 30-year-old neurosurgeon is killed due to the negligence of another party, his surviving wife would be entitled to HUGE damages, becausae the extent of her loss is relatively easy to determine - the annual earnings of her deceased husband multiplied by his life expectancy, with several other items factored in to cover cost of living increases, etc.

Unfortunately, children do not command such sums of money, because there is nothing to base any calculation upon.
 
Why? Because the settlements were agreed to by the city. Local governments are notoriously bad at such things. It's easier to capitulate to public opinion to Blame Somebody than to say no.
 
Why? Because the settlements were agreed to by the city. Local governments are notoriously bad at such things. It's easier to capitulate to public opinion to Blame Somebody than to say no.

Settlements are based upon perceived trial outcomes. Civil defense attorneys are not idiots. They know when a plaintiff's case is not worth very much. If your remarks are directed at my comments on how did the settlement get so big, I don't think you have hit the nail on the head. It doesn't matter what public opinion is, if the case isn't worth the bucks, they aren't going to settle for the bucks.
 
The families of three boys who died almost five years ago in the trunk of a car parked in one of their yards as Camden police searched for them have settled lawsuits against the city.

The families of 11-year-old Anibal Cruz, 6-year-old Daniel Agosto and 5-year-old Jesstin Pagan agreed to accept a total of $2.25 million.

The city was searched after the boys vanished June 22, 2005. But no one checked the trunk of the Toyota Camry parked in the Cruz family's yard. Officials found one officer looked quickly in the main part of the car, then moved on.

Toyota agreed last year to pay the family of each boy $100,000.

The latest settlements were made last month and first reported by The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Settlements Reached In Case Of 3 Who Died In Trunk - New Jersey 101.5 FM

The kids were the in the parents' car in the parents' yard. Because the police did not look there - the city is liable? The parents did not look there either.

Horrible, horrible tragedy but I don't get how the police or Toyota are responsible.

Comments?

I remember this story like it was yesterday. I haunted me for weeks. Has it really been 5 years?

It is utterly ridiculous that the city and Toyota paid a dime for this. But somebody MUST be to blame, so I guess it makes sense in bizzaro world.
 

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