A Montana district court has denied a motion by lawyers for Louisville Slugger to throw out a jury verdict that found the company liable for a 2003 baseball player’s death.
According to the Billings Gazette, Louisville Slugger’s motion argued that attorneys for the parents of Miles City baseball pitcher Brandon Patch failed to produce evidence that had a warning been given, Patch would have changed his actions to avoid injury. The American Legion baseball player died after he was struck by a ball that was hit by an aluminum bat. Patch's parents sued the company in 2006, which followed in trial that October. After 12 hours of deliberation, a jury sided with the Patch family and awarded the parents $850,000. The jury ruled that while the bat was not defective in design, the ordinary user was not properly warned of its dangers.
In the ruling, District Judge Kathy Seeley dismissed arguments citing a prior case in which the person was injured but not killed. Testimony in the trial gave evidence that Patch would follow guidelines and rules and therefore would have altered his actions if a warning had been given, Seeley ruled.
