Rock Concert Injuries

An entertaining Above The Law post about this ad at Q101 in Chicago, where Goldberg Weisman Cairo, a personal injury firm, seeks clients injured at rock concerts.

As a general matter, I find the header (“The pit is dangerous!”) to be a pretty compelling argument for assumption of risk.  I’ve been in quite a number of pits and I was quite aware of the risks.  Indeed, the risks are generally the purpose, no?

Additionally, this caught my eye:

June 29, 1998 A 17-year-old girl attended a rock concert where promotional compact discs were being thrown into the audience as prizes. She suffered an extensive corneoscleral laceration with vitreous hemorrhage and retinal detachment when a compact disc struck her in the eye. An alternative, safer method must be used for distributing compact discs as prizes.

And why did it catch my eye?  Because of how closely it tracked part of my exam [PDF] in Torts last fall, which featured all sorts of bands from the ’80s you don’t want to hear again:

The Fixx performs at Second Street, at a show attended by (among others) Gregory Pajeski, who paid $10 for his ticket.  At the end of the performance, all of the members of the band (including Pyrnin, Prown, and guitarist drummer Adam Poods) throw several dozen free CDs into the crowd as promotions.  Pajeski just misses catching one of them.  At the end of the encore, all three members of the band again throw several dozen free CDs into the crowd.  This time, one hits Pajeski in the ear and slices it open, requiring many stitches and several thousand dollars worth of medical care.

Good times.

–BC