Pennsylvania: Boy Falls Down Mineshaft While on Humanitarian Trip in Mexico

This case involved a 16-year-old boy from Pennsylvania who participated in a service trip to Mexico to assist and mentor underprivileged children. During the trip, a group of American teenagers were taken to an abandoned silver mining camp. There, the 16-year-old fell into a mineshaft during a game of tag with some of the local children. The mineshaft was neither labeled nor guarded, and stretched 500 feet deep into the earth. This meant that the child fell for ten to fifteen seconds before subsequently dying from blunt force trauma upon impact. The Defendant in this case was the organization which recruited teens for humanitarian work trips. The company that made the actual travel arrangements was also named as a defendant, however they were dismissed from the case on jurisdictional grounds before trial. The main defense offered by Defendant was that the company that arranged the travel, and not Defendant, was responsible for the care, custody, and control of the teen during the humanitarian trip. However, the court agreed with the Plaintiff, holding that because Defendant approved the trip they had a duty to inspect the safety of the location. After a bench trial, the Plaintiff was awarded $2 million for the wrongful death action and $13 million for the survival claim based on horror endured by the decedent as he plunged to his death.

VERDICT: $15,000,000

Patterson v. Travel for Teens LLC