Can (Should) I Sue?
LondonBridge
__BANNED USERS regular
__BANNED USERS regular
In April I was at my local gym that I've been a member of since they opened back in 2001. I was working my biceps on a pulley when a all-metal triceps bar that someone left on a top pulley fell on my head and as a result I had to get 3 staples. The gym employees saw what happened and were helpful, I think they were fearful that's I'd come back with a lawsuit. Anyways, I received the medical bill for about $400 which is my deductible for the year and forwarded it off to the gym manager who said she'll follow up with corporate on it. She said it takes up to six months for them to review it and its been about six months and they hadn't responded to me yet. I did email them this week to no response.
If they ignore me or refuse to reimburse me for my claim then how would I go about getting my money back? Should I sue for extra as they wasted a lot of my time? Honestly the gym is lucky that the triceps bar landed on my head and not someone else's as there are many seniors that go to this gym
TLDR: Injured at gym, they don't respond. How do I sue?
If they ignore me or refuse to reimburse me for my claim then how would I go about getting my money back? Should I sue for extra as they wasted a lot of my time? Honestly the gym is lucky that the triceps bar landed on my head and not someone else's as there are many seniors that go to this gym
TLDR: Injured at gym, they don't respond. How do I sue?
LondonBridge on
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Before you get too involved, I would make sure that you have a chance of winning your case. Are you asserting that the gym was negligent? Do you have evidence that they left the weight in a precarious place that could fall on your head, and it wasn't just some random person before you? Did you sign a limitation of liability clause in your membership contract?
Tacking on extra damages for "wasted time" probably won't hold up in most courts, and might even get the whole claim overturned. I'd ask for whatever your real damages were, from medical bills, medicine, and any physical therapy needed, plus any time off work that was taken. Everyone reads in the paper about some guy that gets a million from McDonalds for spilling hot coffee on himself, but that's the one out of 100,000 cases a year that actually pays off like that.
My advice is to be sensible about it.
Also, Doc's right, call their home office and write a letter to them instead of using e-mail.
By that I mean any lawyer fee, as well as processing (someone mentioned $50 for a court fee or something).
Oh I know that, I'm just asking if they ignore or deny my claims altogether. What can I do?
You don't need an attorney for small claims court. That's the whole goddamn point. It's a court of equity, not a court of law.
You may or may not have a case, though really, I'd think this is a pretty reasonable request on your part, and should just be part of their cost of doing business.
of just what exactly? Wasted time would be silly, but the injury? Was it their negligence that put the bar there? Could you prove that? The way you worded it you don't even sound like you think it was really their fault, just some other jackass before you breaking rules they probably have in place for just that reason.
If it was something like equipment failure because they failed to maintain it properly that hurt you you'd have something to go to court about, or if the equipment malfunctioned in an unexpected way you could sue the manufacturer, but this sounds like just misuse of the machine, which is almost certainly covered in your contract and not really their fault. It wasn't YOUR fault either, but you'd have to find the guy who did leave the bar there and prove it was him
You couldn't sue them for giving you the runaround because for reasons above I don't think they'd owe you any money at all, and if they do pay the deductible that's really nice of them
And this is so NOT official legal advice, but I'm sure you know that ^_^
Edit: However if you can get them to agree to it is IMPERATIVE that you go on Judge Judy(which is not an official court in any way, fyi)dressed in a tuxedo t-shirt and shorts, and get yourself ejected
So worth the money and it would entertain me
Second, it's going to depend on the exact situation, and the state he's in. It may or may not be the gym's fault, however I'd be surprised if corporate wasn't willing to pay $400 to make it go away.
Can you you sue:
Probably, but it depends on what you signed when joining the gym, as people have said. It should be written clear enough for you to find out for yourself, or read now if you have a copy, without getting a lawyer to go through it ($).
Extra? How much time of yours have they wasted? The time it took for you to send off a medical bill and write an email? Unless you have been spending the interim 6 months single-mindedly pursuing this medical expense, then no, they haven't wasted your time.
Also, it doesn't matter how 'lucky' you think the gym is, it didn't land on a seniors head, it landed on yours, so that is the case you have to deal with.
As it stands, it will be a small claims court issue, and in some you cannot sue to include your costs; this is to limit frivolous claims & the involvement of lawyers (cases take longer), which is really the point of small claims. It also means that for $400, you will be writing off a significant percentage of that to costs, so find out what the rules of the court are.
Should you sue:
It doesn't look at all convincing to me that you have a reasonable claim here. If the machine had broken and hit you, perhaps - bad maintainance of facilities, gym responsible. Someone leaving a bar on the machine you were using, you not noticing and it falling on you, accident. You do not absolve all personal responsibility when you walk into an owned premises, they can perfectly well argue that a) they are not responsible for all the actions of their membership, and that b) you have to exercise common sense in ensuring your own safety.
To me, a lot of your OP reads like self-justification. I know it sucks that you have to pay $400 for it, but that's a problem with your insurer & the US health system, not your gym. Accidents happen & often are nobody's fault; unless the gym were / are actually negligent. If that is your claim, you will have a very tough time arguing it since you seem to have retained your membership. Otherwise, there is no substantive reason to go after them.
Harm - easy enough with your bills and blow to the head
Negligence - that the gym did not respond to the safety threat in a reasonable manner (whether or not another customer left out the weight)
Cause - that the harm caused to you was a result of their negligence
(there's one other thing too, but I can't remember it just now - I may have wrapped it up in the other 3)
Keep in mind that if this does go to court, your health insurer may want to weigh in on this as well. While the cost of your care only cost you personally $400, it may have cost them more, which means more money for the gym to pay out.
Again, given the amount of time you will have invested prior to taking the claim to court and the additional time it will take to go through that process, I think you should evaluate whether that amount of time is worth $400 to you.
You're a hundred percent correct, but a lawyer still helps the situation with experience. Unless the OP is skilled in courtroom procedure he could say the wrong thing or fill out the wrong form and then the case gets rejected and he's lost.
Key point is he doesn't NEED an attorney. It doesn't mean he shouldn't have one.
Are you high?
And the whole point of small claims court is that it's really easy to do for a layperson. Not only do you not need an attorney for it, you're not allowed to have one with you in most jurisdictions during the trial, and they're usually priced way higher than is reasonable for small claims cases.
Which is, y'know, exactly what Thanatos is saying: it's a court of equity, not a court of law. The judge is going to look at LB's statement, look at the gym's statement, ask some common-sense questions like "Why was the bar up there?" "Didn't you see the bar up there?" "Why didn't the employees take the bar down?" etc. It's a lot more like Judge Judy than Law and Order.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
It's also possible that your incident got buried under a pile of paperwork somewhere.
The fact that you've waited so long might make things a bit more difficult on you, but like most people have said, if you pursue the matter, they'll probably take care of it quickly. Call whoever you called before, figure out what can be done. If they say that they can't do anything, ask to speak with their supervisor. Just work your way up the food chain until you get results.
I got Comcast to pay over 800 dollars in overdraft fees because they autodrafted my account two months after I had disconnected. It took me a month to get them to do it, but I finally got ahold of the right person, and they wrote me a check on the spot.
Taking this to small claims court seems a little hasty.
It could be anywhere from 12 months to 6 years.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.