Posted On: April 3, 2008, 2:17 pm CDT

Posted By: Alex

I'm with LastBat and C regarding how the mother allowed her son to reach that weight in the first place. At 443 pounds this kid was morbidly obese and probably had come contributing conditions. There's obviously something at play here we don't know about since the $1M settlement isn't that high for a wrongful death suit. I still have a problem with awarding the survivors in alleged med-mal cases. People keep swearing nobody can put a price on the life of loved one but that's exactly what they do in these suits. How does a financial windfall make them feel better about what happened? They aren't punishing the doctors since their med-mal insurance covers the settlement. It only drives up the cost of medical services. We need a better way to address these kinds of things but I don't see any coming in our lifetime since the lawyers aren't likely to step back from their money trough.

Our legal system is well-rooted in "compensation" for the injured and I can deal with that. What I can't deal with is enriching the survivors. "Gee, I watched my son gain 443 pounds and he died while trying to artificially control his weight. But.....I'm going to Disneyland">