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While this case is great for headlines, I seriously doubt anything will come from this other than a dismissal of the lawsuit by the court or a jury verdict against the plaintiff. It is my understanding that Viriginia is one of only a couple of states that employs the principal of pure contributory negligence meaning that if an injured person is even 1% at fault himself, he is barred from any recovery. Essentially, one has to act reasonably for his own safety or he can recover nothing. This is not true in and completely different in other states. I see multiple issues of contributory negligence here - trespassing, banditing the race using the license of someone else to gain entry and access to the site and property, assumption of risk, etc. I seriously doubt the insurance company will authorize any settlement given the dangerous precedent and future liability it could incur if it rewarded such behavior. The attorney may make a name for himself by filing this suit, and, assuming he actually knows the law, that may be the only reason he took this case.

The adverse outcome for all of us is that the insurance companies bump up the rates for race coverage (if for no other reason than to cover the costs of dealing with BS law suits) and we all pay for it through higher entry fees.

Not to sound too cynical, but I wouldn't be surprised if this jerk makes a 'miraculous' recovery at some point once the law suit is settled.

Mark

I really don't see how people are making comments like this.  The fact that he was running the race bandit is irrelevant.  I agree, you shouldn't bandit a race but we are talking about someone potentially being paralyzed for life.  I hate when people curse at me from cars while I'm running but I don't hope they hit a tree down the road and die.  It's an entry fee and a waiver, if the course was dangerous they are at fault.

These obstacle based courses are popping up like wildfire.  You don' think its possible someone designing the course fumbled at one point and made a risky obstacle?  How extensive training are they going through to design these things?  You promote these events to the general public with the 'everyone can do it' attitude and then someone gets hurt.  

I don't know who is at fault.  I didn't see the course and I don't know this guy.  It's terrible he will potentially have to live out the rest of his life paralyzed and its unfortunate the race has been tarnished for others.  

Someone explain why we are out for blood with this guy??

I have hoped a few of them would.

And that's exactly why they want people to sign the waiver before stepping foot onto their course. It IS dangerous, and they create the legal forms to protect themselves from this exact thing happening.

He broke the rules plain and simple. No sympathy here.

Because he is suing for 30 million dollars for a race he never should have been participating in because he wasn't registered.

http://www.facebook.com/rfect2

Send him your get well wishes.

Is that a picture from the race that he has on his fb page?

Yep, if you scroll down to the pic he even titled it "the moment just before everything changed".  Nope, that moment was when your dumb toed the start line to a race you had no business being in.  

Some people enjoy doing activities that have some level of inherent risk.  Sure an obstacle course race has some risk of injury, and if you fall wrong in a mud pit you may injure yourself.  Doesn't mean we should outlaw obstacle racing for everyone.  People get in car wrecks all the time, we don't outlaw driving.  Planes crash we don't outlaw flying.  Hell you could trip on a cracked sidewalk hit your head a paralyze yourself.  You're saying that you should then sue the town for $30,000,000 for providing an unsafe sidewalk?  Clearly thousands of other people were able to step over that crack without injury... And clearly every other participant was able to navigate the mud pit without injury.

If you want to take part in an activity with risk attached to it and you injure yourself then tough.  you are the one who chose to partake. 

Fred, after reading your post, I agree completely.  With you.

if he never put himself in the situation to start with, the situation would have never happened.

a poor comparison would be a thief being shot or injured while stealing from someones house, if they weren't there where they shouldn't have been in the first place, it becomes a non occurrence.

he was basically stealing services and got hurt.

But it wasn't his fault...

" Fecteau says the pit forced him to jam his hands and arms as he started to crawl"

Um... how did it FORCE him to jam his hands and arms?

Well, not necessarily.  It depends on the law in the area.  Homeowners have been sued by trespassers/thieves that have been injured on the homeowners property.  An extreme example would be booby traps set up to catch thieves.

He's wearing a race number in the pic. How did he get one if he was banditing the race? Used an old one, perhaps?

I don't agree with what the guy did, but let me play devil's advocate for a minute. HAD he paid the $50 and signed the waiver, don't you think he would be suing anyway? He could make some argument like he didn't feel he had enough time to read it or the font was too small or something else, making it irrelevant.