13 WTHR Indianapolis: The owner of the stage that collapsed at the Indiana State Fair now says the State Fair Commission has a duty to protect that company. Mid America Sound made that claim as it answers for the first time wrongful death lawsuits filed against the company. Seven people died and dozens were injured in the Aug. 13th accident.
Thursday, April 05, 2012
Mid America Sound denies responsibility in 2011 stage collapse
13 WTHR Indianapolis: The owner of the stage that collapsed at the Indiana State Fair now says the State Fair Commission has a duty to protect that company. Mid America Sound made that claim as it answers for the first time wrongful death lawsuits filed against the company. Seven people died and dozens were injured in the Aug. 13th accident.
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And now see the importance of a CYA clause for a company. Even though Mid America cited "unforseeable misuse", Mid America Sound is legally not responsible when the Indiana State Fair Commission signed a contract assuming all responsibility. And as the article mentions, that includes death.
Also, why is Sugarland called to testify? The talent that did not even perform or get on the stage. Unless they feel unsafe (*which would require them to have been at the stage cite), they are not the ones who should be making the call to cancel. Let them continue this tour and leave them out, they have no responsibility for this.
Meg is right, CYA is a beautiful thing. Mid amerca can't is solely responsible for makin a product not how the stage and sound crew set it all up. If I buy a tape measure walk into the shop and throw it at sonia's head I can't sue stanley for making a tape measure that caused sonia pain upon collision with her head. Unless there is an actual physical failure of the Mid America equipment that was caused by assembly. And truly why is Sugarland still being blamed. The guitarist wasn't in a harness rigging the speakers before sound check and I'm sure the signer wasn't drafting the stage layout in-between recording sessions.
It's too bad that Mid America may be shirking responsibility for something they could have helped to prevent, but it seems to me that their contract has them legally protected from being responsible. What I hope is that the fault really was purely the State Fair Commission's and that the rental company is not getting away unscathed for an issue they were actually a part of. As Meg and Sean have said, this shows the true importance of CYA, because the company could have been held responsible otherwise even if they were completely innocent of any fault or involvement. On another note, I'm glad that Sugarland decided to cooperate. It was pretty shady when they weren't going to. I don't want to believe that they would have agreed to go onstage even though they were told it was unsafe, but I guess we will find out once they testify if they even knew about the weather/safety warnings.
The legal ramifications of this calamity are vast and beyond the scope of my understanding however- I did watch the raw footage of this collapse this week and wow- this weather was fierce. I am sure the installing organization could have done NOTHING wrong and this structure still would have collapse. The error IF any, was not cancelling the show and it is very hard to regulate what should have happened. IT was a freak accident. This week in Entertainment Rigging we talked about ground support and David Boevers said, “sometimes it does not matter what ground support you do, and a tornado could come by and take the ground out from under you and …” I find it hard to put blame on this act of nature.
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