News out of Hawaii today is enough to give any parent who chaperones school field trips reason to stay home or go into work.
According to an article published by Fox News,
The Hawaii verdict came in the case of an 18-year-old high school student who fell to her death from a Maui hotel balcony.
Lauren Crossan, of Randolph, N.J., had traveled to Hawaii in 2004 with Susanne Sadler, Sadler's daughter, and another New Jersey cheerleader to perform in the halftime show of the Hula Bowl. Within hours of her arrival at the Hyatt Regency Maui Resort, Crossan was seen drinking alcohol. Her body was found the next day on the hotel grounds.
An arbitrator determined last month that Sadler was partially responsible for Crossan's death and ordered her to pay $690,000 to Crossan's parents and her estate.
Let me make sure I understand how this works. An ADULT student going on a field trip violates a school policy against drinking and a state law against drinking, gets drunk, falls off a hotel balcony and dies. The ADULT student is not responsible for her actions, the adult chaperone is.
To add insult to injury, the lawyer representing the dead girl takes it upon himself to lecture parents who dare to chaperone idiot ADULT students.
Once on the trip, parents should be vigilant about watching for potential dangers, added James Krueger, the Maui attorney who represented Crossan's family.
Krueger, who would not comment on the Crossan case because of a court-imposed gag order, said parents could reduce their liability by enforcing the rules established by the trip's sponsor and using common sense parenting skills.
"If you're a good parent, you're not going to have problems," said Krueger, who has handled numerous cases of children injured while in the custody of someone other than their parents. "If you're a crappy parent, you are."
Until someone can prove that the chaperone held this ADULT cheerleader onto the ground, forced alcohol down her throat over the young woman's objections, then pushed her off a balcony, I think the victim's family should donate the money they unjustly extorted to an organization or group that provides training to help parents instill common sense and values into their children before they become adults. As tragic as this case appears, the real blame lies clearly at the feet of the victim's parents who obviously failed to teach their daughter the dangers associated with drinking. If someone other than the ADULT victim must be held responsible for the death, then the parents would obviously be next in line.
Since witnesses reported that the victim was drinking within hours of her arrival at Hawaii, I suspect this was not the young woman's first exposure to alcohol. After all, most responsible teenage girls I know would not have drinking at the top of their list when taking a trip to one of the most beautiful tropical paradises in the world. But, this case also points a finger at school districts which create elaborate athletic codes that ban drinking while participating in sports and set strict penalties for violating those codes, but then turn a blind eye or pay lip service to the policy when students are caught or "everyone knows" that drinking is taking place.
Rather than blaming some other parent for their ADULT daughter's lack of judgment and common sense, the victim's parents owe all the chaperones on that trip a huge apology for subjecting them to the idea they had to invest their time and money in babysitting some other parents' ADULT daughter who valued partying more than competition, and drunken behavior more than revealing in the splendor of a tropical paradise.