This idea came up in another thread, and I am curious to others viewpoints on it. We have always asked ourselves how close we are to "someday someones going to get sued and things will change". Now I have taken the stance on this that its not likely to happen - that most players are pretty judgement proof and the big companies would absorb it as a cost of doing business.

I think this may not be the major concern. Many markers, at least those that ramp and bounce, appear to me to be in clear violation of the ATSM standards. What about those that the triggers are set so loose on that you can make the marker fire by bumping it. I'm sure there are various others.

At what point do we come too close to the line - the line of criminal negligence in our apathy of these standards - players, manufacturers, sellers... We either need to address ATSM standards to today and change them to reflect todays ideas, or look at conforming to them as they are now. I prefer the first option.

I'm not a lawyer, I do not know the answers exactly, but I have this feeling that we are coming close to lines that are not about civil suits - lines that could find a player, a manufacturer, a seller as defendents in the criminal courts. Thoughts? Ideas? Am I just way off base and looking for an issue?

PS - Don't for a moment think that I am being holier than thou in these considerations - I use ramping software... I like it. But this discussion, carried from a different thread is one that we, as players and those involved in paintball, need to have. At least in my mind.

Is there really criminal negligence to it..if the person hurt or injured is playing on his/her own free will? I underdstand if they are hurt by somone shooting in an illegal mode but the person injured still knows the risk and knows that the cheat modes are out there.
i think proposing criminal negligence is a little extreme.The person is not intentionaly hurting the other person then again there is a such thing as an unintentional tort...but negligence would be intentional so a person could have a civil suit for an unintentional tort but the other person would not be acting negligently since it was not on purpose.my thoughts are kinda scttered so if that doesnt make since sorry..and plz correct me if i am wrong just using what little bit of knowledge i have of civil law.

Some days I have to make a choice. Should I freeze my balls or shoot marbles from my ramping & bouncing 3.7 FLY? Soooo many suckers. So few marbles and frozen paintballs.

Criminal negligence? No way. Screw'em if they can't take a joke.

Think of it from a different perspective, someone who doesn't know or doesn't care about the "everyone else does it so do I" line of reasoning.

The hypothetical you is playing paintball and is using ramping software... the unthinkable happens and someone is killed because you were banging the bunker as you came around, pulled the trigger three times and put nine shots - three pulls into a sensitive area. The victim dies shortly thereafter. I'm not even going to get into what happens if you were using ramping velocity.

You have violated known and accepted ATSM standards - standards that prohibit ramping. You knowingly violated the safety standards the industry agreed to adn someones death resulted. I do not beleive that negligent criminal acts do not require intent (remember I have been arguing intent all this time in regards to my civil liability and insurance). Under my understanding your willful disregard for ATSM standards may make you - as a player criminally negligent. It may be possible to go after the makers who have produced markers in disregard of "industry accepted standards". Are you sure that you are not criminally negligent should someone push it?

You say it as a joke, and I don't dispute that. But is not that example just the extreme example of disregard for the safety standards that prohibit bounce and ramping? How, except in the extreme, is ramping and bouncing, in the eyes of negligence, different?

In the absence of a regulatory agency that govern what goes on within an industry, the courts will look at some quasi-governmental body like the ASTM to determine and define what falls within the realm of acceptability and reason.

If a catastrophe strikes.....citing a hypothetical accidental death that occurs involving ramping software, any competent attorney will be able to point the finger at so many people who can be at some point culpable for that death. The field operator where the death occured, his insurance carrier, the manufacturer of the equipment used, the software programmer, etc., even before that same attorney goes full bore after the perpetrating individual. Blanket suit is a very likely scenario and that's only on the civil end.

Criminal charges? If I was the parent of the dead player, I'd make sure everyone pays for my loss both in civil and criminal court. A competent attorney can very easily get that done.

Should this be a scenario to be feared by the industry? Maybe, maybe not. But at the very least show some attempt to address it pre-emptively if not for the safety of the players, then for the security of their pocket books.

if someone killed another person using ramping or some other program they still would not be acting criminaly negligent, or negligent for that matter since they did not purposley kill/harm them.

also in a civil court the field/player and or the manufactuer of the marker may be charged with stirct liability even though there are waivers/warnings etc.i think they could be atleast not positive.

Does the insurance company who provides the coverage for the field allow for such a firing mode? In all likelihood, no. If that is the case and that player used an "illegal" board that gave his gun a ramping mode that killed another player, yes he could be found criminally negligent. If he is a minor, a good lawyer can make a case about his parents being criminally negligent.

Negiligent criminal charges do not require INTENT... they require NEGLIGENCE. That is at least in my understanding of the law - I'm not a lawyer.

If you are going 180MPH on the road - when the accepted limit is 60 (notice the three times the legal limit, like three shots one pull) you will almost definetly face some type of criminal action involving negligence, even if you never intended to kill someone.

completely disregard what i said. they would be negligent becasue they unintentionaly harmed someone by desregarding others. i mixed some stuff up. But they wouldnt be criminally negligent. i dotn believe they would~im just confusing myself

To carry this argument further, I'd like to know whether a company like Tadao or Advantage carries any product liability insurance for their boards.

I'd like to know whether the team owners or team sponsors carry enough liability insurance in the event that somebody get injured with an illegal piece of equipment used by one of their players.

Does the NPPL and PSP have insurance that includes coverage for injuries sustained against equipment that doesn't fall within parameters prescribed by the ASTM?

If they don't, WHY NOT? If in the name of competition and doing everything that you feel you must do to win, why can't they at least cover the players against the worse case scenario.

Lets not forget that we're not talking about what's right or wrong, but what's legal and what isn't.

To use an ancient example from common law, a man chopping wood with an axe is not liable should the head of the axe come loose and hit someone unless he knew the head of the axe was loose.

So, we have a common adopted safety standard, ASTM. We have people at various levels in the industry from the heads of corporations to individual players who make, sell, and use equipment that does not meet that standard and is therefore unsafe. If someone gets hurt, all those people can and very well may be held liable.

Oh, then there's another matter... Somebody gets hurt because nobody in the industry really pays much attention to the self-imposed safety standards, and the government might just decide that it's time they stepped in and imposed a set of standards that *will* be complied with.


At some point, the people in the paintball industry are going to have to take a look at the long-term effects of their current marketing strategies. Selling lots of paint in the short term could have pretty disasterous effects on their businesses (oh, and our little hobby) in the long term.

Ok here is an actual true case:
President of a company tells his people to cut off the tops of the empty 55 gallon arsenic drums and use them as garbage cans. Everything is fine for about 10 years and then his employees start dying. He was a corporation which normally protects the owner from personal liability in a lawsuit against the company (may paintball companies understand this very well). But in this case the courts cut through the "corporate veil" and went after the owner personally. They took everything he had and threw him in jail. This was because he knowingly violated industry standards that jeopordized the lives of his employees.

So, we all know what the industry standards are.
We also know a guy in England died after getting shot in the head.
The companies all voted on the standards and were completely aware of them.
Those same companies have now elected not to follow those guidelines.
The companies did it because of competitive pressure in other words "for the money"

Now ask yourself, if you were sitting on the jury, how would you vote?

AGD

In your example, the shoot someone and them dying. That would be considered man slaughter and you would do jail time for it. Its not 1st or 2nd degree murder, but would fall into the realm of man slaughter.


One thing people need to keep in mind as well is a paintball gun is still a class ??? don't know the number weapon (less than leathal), so it would still be considered a weapon if someone died.

For me, this is not a question of “if” but of “when”. With the growing popularity of the sport even with strict rules enforced, you are going to run into situations where someone gets hurt and then charged with a criminal act. However, when you create, and then actively enforce (and that is key) safety and equipment standards, you can reduce the chance of bad things happening by a great deal.

And as Tom stated, criminal negligence is not that hard to prove and folks are being tried for it all the time. Currently though, in the paintball industry (and sport in general) I think folks are in the “it will never happen to me” mode. It is always the “other guy” until it happens to you.

It is time the industry as a whole stops looking at each individual bottom line and looks to the betterment of the sport. You can still have a good bottom line and maintain reasonable safety standards, for playing and for equipment.

TK, and others, have brought up valid points - that with the current atmosphere in paintball we are on the wrong side of negligence - someone someday is going to go to jail over paintball. At taht point we are going to either form a real regulatory body that has power, or the goverment is going to lay out a set of laws (if we're lucky). The other alternative is that PB guns will be classed as deadly weapons and playing of the game will become criminal assault.

To me there are two answers to this. The first is to follow ATSM standards as they are written. The other, and more likely in my mind is for the companies to come together and "update" ATSM standards. There is no reason that these need to be viewed as written in stone... it can be a static document and change as needed to limit the industr.

I have not read all the posts yet, but, shouldn't the same be said for college and pro athletes? Yet, how many times have the authorities stepped overtop of the organizational bodies when there has been serious infractions between two players. Incidents like Dino Ciccarelli spearing....umm...(what ever the hell his name was back in the 80's). If I am not mistaken Ciccarelli spent time in jail for that and all that was was "illegal" use of the equipment used to play the game. I don't see much difference between spearing someone and getting arrested for it, or overshooting (and hurting) someone and getting arrested for it.

Now, if a criminal charge should ever happen, it would be against the person using the gun, not the company that made it. BUT, that does not mean the company would get away clean, it would just be brought up as a civil lawsuit.

That being said, even a person using a pump gun could be charged if the gun was used improperly. Rmping boards just make it easier. Think about how many criminal charges are brought upon drivers if they kill someone in an auto accident.

My concern is not with an accident that happens with ATSM approved equipment - though I realize the risk is there. I think at that point you may get away without criminal charges. But what if you are using equipment that is clearly in violation of industry standards?

Amen.

That's convenient to bring up, despite the fact that the autopsy revealed that he was not killed as a result of a paintball impact. He had a preexisting medical condition and was ordered by his doctor to not play sports.

Ask Manike for details.

Could be... but the line of questions that was brought up would be brought up to a jury by a prosecutor... sure the defense would argue that preexisting condition etc. but how relevant would that be to the line of questioning. Even without that question in there.. how would you, if you were the non paintball playing public, decide a case based on those facts.

Alright, here's where I have to chime in.

"Man dies during paintball game" headlines say.
Right below it, first paragraph should read "he suffered an aneurysm during the game, a condition that his doctors had warned him about."
Then, a quote from the doctor "I had warned him not to play sports of any kind, he just didn't want to listen"

Good reporting would get the facts straight, not try and twist information to make paintball "look bad". If your doctors told you to not drive because you're prone to frequent fainting spells, and you drive, get yourself into a car accident because you fainted and kill someone, can you sue the car manufacturer? Can you sue your doctor?

I am not discussing sueing anyone, I am discussing criminal charges - and if you recall they looked into criminal charges in that issue and the fact that he had a preexisting condition probably saved people from going to jail - as I understand it.

Don't look at the real possibilities, complain that they are real - it won't solve anything. Based on what I am seeing on this thread, like it or not, it is only a matter of time before someone is on trial for an "accident" in paintball. And considering our disregard for ATSM standards someone is going to have a problem in court. Adding the fact that someone has already been killed in paintball is just going to cause your defense attorney to have one more thing to try to overcome to keep you out of jail. The facts TK brought up are likely going to be brought to a jury and work against whoever it is that becomes the test case.

Ignore the facts, hide from them, maybe they'll go away - I doubt it. We need to do something, even if it is as simple as just updating ATSM standards.

yes, I can sue the manufacturer is civil court, and I will likely get a "nuisance" award before it even goes to court. Doctor.. possibly for not looking at better methods. Remember, people have sued Wal-Mart for selling family members guns that they committed suicide with. Regardless.. if GM ignored known safety faults - at the order of the CEO and knowingly violated industry standards for profit with disregard to teh safety of that decision and someone was killed - could they be held criminally liable. I would argue whoever made the decision would be liable in criminal court. I think your going to find that a lot of people are going to be looked at closely in regards to criminal law should someone ever be killed in paintball without a preexisting condition. The events that have already unfolded are just going to be used against them to prove just how negligent they are. I think we are obviously past the line of criminal negligence should the unfortunate ever occur.

The world is becoming a bunch back stabbers. A company gives as a product the majority wants. If anything goes wrong even if it isn't the said companys fault the once happy player is sueing that company. Lawsuits are out of control, not the paintball industry! It is like these want to get rich liberals that sue a gun company because someone used a firearm in a crime. Simply crazy! If anyone was truely concerned about high end markers being too much of anything everyone would be buying ammor that makes you look like the Michelin Man. How many people do you see wearing that crap? Paintball gear as a whole is changing. As the markers become faster, the safety gear is becoming better to. We are not out to kill,neither is the paintball industry. I say,"let it ride"!

Do you realize that that attitude (I'm guilty of having it to an extent) is what may ultimately land someone in criminal court - and subsequently jail?

This is not about sueing and getting rich, or about getting sued. The concerns I have involve the criminal court, and that attitude being on the wrong side of criminal negligence.

Am I concerned about injury or death in paintball? No I'm still in the "it will never happen to me" camp. But I am looking at things around paintball and starting to accept that it may just be a matter of time before it happens somewhere to someone. I think its not a matter of if anymore, I think its a matter of when and to who it happens.

Once it does happen I think a lot of people are going to be surprised. Surprised when they find themselves not only on the wrong end of a million dollar (or whatever) civil lawsuit but looking at a district attorney and having there attorney explain to them, that in the confines of the criminal law, they are in fact guilty of negligent homicide (or whatever) and should seek a plea to minimize jail time.

If the majority of players or members of the industry continue to take the same position you have just expressed, then we are indeed headed towards a very uncertain future.

What I do and have professed is for the industry to take pre-emptive steps to ensure that when the hammer falls, that we are in better position to defend outselves. Perhaps it is time to start looking at the ASTM Paintball Sub-Committee as more than just an advisory group. Eventually when the hammer does fall, in the absence of an industry governing body, a judge will base his knowledge on what the ASTM states as the acceptable and reasonable parameters.

No offense intended but we should discuss ideas on a probable pre-emptive solutions rather than just acquiesce and leave our fate to others.

I was trying to think of examples.

Take boxing.. there are set regulations around the glove based on safety concerns.

Let's say you as a boxer "weight" a glove, and someone is killed as a result - you are going to have criminal issues.

Let's say the promotor of the event encouraged "weighted" gloves in order to draw more participants... can we say criminal facilitation or other charges (again not a lawyer)?

Let's say that a company disregarded known safety rules in order to manufacture those "weighted" gloves - criminal facilitation?

I don't think that it's only the player that is going to have a problem when the tragedy occurs. We, from promotors, to players, to manufacturers... at least many of us, are ignoring the warning signs, the clearly posted standards, and what the non-paintball playing public would view as common sense in what we do. And remember your not likely to have a tournament player to "understand" why you did the actions that you did that resulted in a death on the jury that I beleive, ultimately will convict someone (or multiple someones) for that tragedy when it occurs.

100% agreed. It is time that we took action (and I have said rewriting of ATSM standards for example, and htere are others) to be in that better position to defend ourselves. Can we stop it from happening? I think eventually a tragedy is going to happen. But as it stands now, when it does... there is, to me, obvious negligence and we have nothing to defend our actions with that will help any of us in front of a jury.

That's a cheap and pathetic excuse to avoid responsibility.

People want cheap infant formula. Does that mean that those is China who sold counterfeit formula that killed babies aren't responsible? After all they only "gave the product the consumers wanted".

And if you look past your Liberal hatred, even gun companies need to be put on some kind of leash if they won't regulate themselves.

Some cases may be overboard, but doesn't even a gun company cross the line when their advertising underlines that their grips don't keep fingerprints or if they sell unusually high numbers of weapons to questionable individuals near jurisdictions with restrictions (or close to a border)?

I've also had the "comapnies only give consumers what they want" argument in antoehr thread that got erased. While partially true, companies create the image and spend fortunes on advertising. Or do you believe the cigarette manufacturers crap that advertising is only for market share and not to create demand?