The plot thickens, so to speak. They’re saying, from the autopsy report, that the amount of fentanyl in the kid’s system was equal to about 2 grains of salt (which is all it takes to kill someone, unfortunately). That doesn’t indicate that there was a pill. It was more likely just residue of powder/dust. It could have even come in on the bottom of someone’s shoe. It could have come from the cab/rental car/uber or even from the airport if it got on a bag and the child touched it later and then put her hand in her mouth.
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As @JJD points out a lethal dose of fentanyl for such a small child could be the size of two grains of salt, so while I agree with your suggestion it would not have helped here.
Another takeaway is the potential risks of everyday homes to very young children. While I suppose that we all ‘know’ this, each time I read cases like this some surprise me and re-light a fire to think about what risks on our property might pose a risk to guests, especially young children.
Another takeaway is to remind Hosts of lawsuits related to injuries to young children. The lawyer for the plaintiffs here settled another lawsuit for $17.5 million when a 2-year old was killed by a dresser tipping over on the toddler.
When I read about the furniture tip-0ver case I quickly visualized the Airbnb for which I am co-Host for any such risks but I don’t think we have anything like that. As I reflected it occurred to me again that when permitting young children as guests that the preventative measures need to be ‘more’ than if we were not permitting such young guests. For example, I think if we did have dressers in the property and admitted toddlers that it would be prudent for us to bolt the dressers or similar items (a picture, a wall hanging, of course a bookcase, etc.) that could tip over/fall.
Here’s the link about the tip-over settlement: Leesfield Scolaro sues corporations responsible for creating safety standards that resulted in furniture tip-over fatality — Florida Injury Lawyer Blawg — April 8, 2021
I raised 3 kids, there were plenty of other toddlers in my home over the years, none of the furniture was “bolted down”, nor did any toddler ever have a piece of furniture fall on them.
Obviously if you have some lightweight, pressboard, inexpensive furniture which is tippy, or could easily be pushed or pulled over, it should be secured somehow, but a normal wooden dresser isn’t going to tip over even if a toddler pulls a drawer out and stands in it.
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A top cause of death in toddlers and children is suffocation and choking. Drowning as well and that can happen in a tub or a dog’s bowl of water but it’s usually a pool. None of these are labeled “parent failure to monitor child” which is also a leading cause of child death. Ranked above that is intentional homicide. The greatest danger to children are their own families.
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Well, take a look at that link I provided on the tip-over case. It turns out that the ASTM standards/procedures were faulty.
I get that. Same in my family.
But that’s really anecdotal or as some might say here, non-sequitur.
Even if everyone on this forum had the same experience that you and I had, that doesn’t mean that it’s safe or prudent for a commercial hospitality provider. Accidents occur with a frequency, some very low. For example, the probability of dying in a car accident is very low, about one in four million. So that’s a low risk for you and me but for a country it’s significant and warrants study on how to reduce those accidents.
It’s very simple to toggle bolt furniture to the wall.
Suppose a dresser fell over on a 2-year old in a Host’s property and seriously injured or killed that child.
Can you imagine how an attorney would grill that Host on the stand?
Suppose the lawyer could establish somehow that the Host actually did hear/read about the possibility of bolting the dresser, had read about the tip–over case above but concluded, “Nah, not going to do anything because our dressers when I grew up/raised a family weren’t bolted down, don’t know anyone whose was, or killed by a tipping-over dresser.”
How do you think that might go?
How do you think the Host would privately feel about the death/injury of the child when a simple precaution would have prevented it?
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Are you talking to me? I’m not disputing that ASTM was at fault. I think you’re addressing Muddy but just wanted to be at fault. If you ever see me post any kind of “well, when I was a kid it was this way” as any justification for anything, please call me out on it. That is so much bs. Child mortality due to accidents has plummented since 1950 in large part due to increased safety regulations.
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Not in this post. You’re right that it’s in response to @muddy’s post.
Call me out on it too, though I do understand the instinct to do this and I am sure that I have some/many nonsensical ideas based on my life experiences, especially when I was young and these are now internalized in a way that I’m not even conscious of them.
In the last few days it strikes me from my forum participation that each Host has whatever experience they have, and especially if they’ve been at it awhile there can be a tendency to conclude ‘this is the way it is.’
Many members here are good about pointing out that one Host’s experience is not another’s: different properties, different locations writ small (this street or that) or write large (this country or that).
Members are good about pointing out pitfalls of stereotyping and broad generalizations.
I think we need to add to the list recency/availability bias that just because some bad contingency hasn’t arisen to you or to most of us (yet) doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t at least consider preventative measures. Of course, anyone can take this too far and each of us apply our judgment.
But we also need to understand that that judgment is subject to human cognitive biases, like the recency/availability bias. For example, if someone’s never heard or heard just many years ago of a toddler dying in a tipped-over dresser, it’s kind of ignored. I’ve just read about, so my mind probably over-emphasizes it.
It might be helpful to think of risks this way: taking risks might be like playing Russian Roulette with one bullet and a large range of chambers. Sometimes there are ten thousand or a hundred thousand chambers, or for a 19-month old toddler encountering two grains of fentanyl just one chamber.
You spin the cylinder, pull the trigger, the gun doesn’t fire, and it’s human nature to tend to think you’re safe.
But, really, you just dodged the bullet, this time.
And it’s another cognitive bias that if I get hit by the bullet to think I was at least somewhat negligent/brought it on myself, but if you don’t get the bullet it’s because of how you handle things.
I can still remember my “car seat” when I was a young child in the early 50s. It was a seat that had 2 metal hooks that it hung by over the back of the long front seat, and it hung there a foot above the seat itself. It might have had some flimsy little lap belt, I don’t recall. I rode between my parents in the front seat able to see out the windows. It had a little steering wheel with a red horn. I can see that red horn in my mind’s eye clearly to this day- it was a plastic half dome in the middle of the steering wheel.
Had we ever been in a collision, I would likely have gone flying through the windshield, “car seat” and all.
It took me 10 minutes to attach and tighten down all the straps of the proper child’s car seat we used for my 3 year old grandaughter when they came for Christmas this year. No way that thing would move in an accident.
Plenty of adults did as well. Before his ill thought out participation in the 2000 election led to GWBush’s presidency, he first came to national attention when he wrote Unsafe At Any Speed about our deadly automobiles.
So today I just read another report on this, which says:
“The lawsuit also lists the Wellington property’s rental manager and a man who rented the home days before the Lavenir family, alleging that the home was was not properly cleaned after being used to host a party in which fentanyl and other illicit drugs were present.”
I thought it had already been established that no fentanyl was found in the home, and the partier guest admitted that there was cocaine, but no fentanyl, so why are they claiming that “fentanyl was present” at the party?
Also, Airbnb now says that the party booking was not done through their platform.
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Yeah, that’s true. This French family with the toddler was the first Airbnb booking for the property. The party in mention was booked through VRBO. Weird that VRBO isn’t in the lawsuit. It’s all convoluted, clearly just seeking a settlement. Probably won’t go to trial, but if it does I’d be kind of interested in the defense angle since finding out what a small amount of Fentanyl it was - seriously could have come in on the wheel of a suitcase.
Or two grains could have come through an open window.
All the plaintiffs have to do is show that it’s more likely than not that the fentanyl was in the home.
They can show that there were two parties in the prior month, that the police were called for one of the parties, that each of the parties included many more people than the reservations, that there illegal drugs including cocaine at the party right before the French family’s reservation, that the manager’s review [EDIT: not review but end-of-stay message] said nothing about the police being called or about the number of people exceeding the reservation but just praised the partying guest. And all this before depositions!
A 19-month old baby is dead. The whole incident is a nightmare scenario for any parent, and the jury will hear the details. IMHO the jury will want to hold someone responsible.
The defendant’s attorney might say that maybe the fentanyl residue was on someone’s shoe or the luggage.
The plaintiff’s attorney will say “Connect the dots.”
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It was a VRBO booking. Hosts can’t leave written reviews on VRBO, only ratings.
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Yes, you’re right. Thank you.
But to my same point it was a written message to the party-ers for whom the police were called and the reservation count greatly exceeded.
That this may be a negligent host is something we don’t know- he could be just one of those unlucky hosts who gets what turns out to be a party booking and is just as dismayed about it as the neighbors, or he might be one of those remote hosts that pays no attention, doesn’t care as long as the $ rolls in, and has a bad manager.
That’s right. We don’t know yet.
But the complaint mentions the HOST had ‘nondelegable duties’ to ‘keep the premises in a reasonably safe condition and to warn of dangerous conditions.’ So, if the manager did a poor job that’s on the Host legally.
If they didn’t know about the police coming to the property, why not? Were there no cameras?
If they didn’t know about the reservation count exceeded for each of the last two reservations, why not? No cameras or just don’t care?
If the manager knew about the police coming to the property, why write that they were perfect guests? If they didn’t know, why?
Plus there a number of things in the complain that surprised me, like they didn’t do an adequate background check on the guests. I don’t know of any duty to do that, but the plaintiff lawyers are really really good, so maybe they’ve got something there (?)
The complaint also alleges the Host did not change or adequately clean the bed sheets.
Plus again there’s going to be discovery in the case. Already it’s looking bad and when ‘everything’ comes out it’s likely to look worse. I remember a policeman on TV once saying that if he could follow the average person driving for an hour he’d easily find multiple violations of the law to cite.
It doesn’t look good for the Host.
A host on the CC once asked what other hosts thought about including naloxone in a first aid kit in rentals. Didn’t sound like a bad idea. Might have saved this baby’s life.
It might be a good idea generally but in this situation no one knew what the problem was with the toddler.
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So - keeping this straight as far as the parties involved….
The guests with the lost child.
The previous Guests.
VRBO
Airbnb
The Host
The Manager
The Cleaner
This will be fascinating to watch to see how some sort of blame is apportioned and assessed……
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I’m guessing it will be settled, so we won’t know. The deep pocket is Airbnb and the complaint argues that Airbnb is liable for all the acts and omissions of the Host and the manager
I would love to see the briefs because I’d like to see the legal authority for the plaintiff’s complaints that the Host should do some of the things that they allegedly failed to do:
– the Host failed to perform an ‘adequate’ background check on the guests (how many of us do that? And what’s ‘adequate’?),
– the Host failed to adequately assess the safety of the premises before the French couple checked in (so that’s interesting: How many of us ‘assess the safety’ right before each guest? And what would that assessment include?),
– the Host failed to investigate the activities of the previous guests (How would the Host do that? Is this a reference perhaps to whether the property had exterior cameras?),
– the Host failed to maintain the subject premises to detect lethal drugs (how would the host do that? And how could anyone have detected what could have been just two salt grain-size residue of fentanyl?)
– the Host ‘permitted’ the previous guest to bring drugs to the home (How? Are they looking for a house rule against illegal drugs?)
I’m also fascinated by the arguments that Airbnb is liable for acts for acts/omissions by independent contractors (which can happen in certain industries where the independent contractor is working a dangerous instrumentality (like a truck; but a home?).
I wonder whether after this lawsuit ends Airbnb will take more responsibility regarding its listings. For example, I see listings where there are no railing on steps. If there’s a fall/accident, I would think this law firm would sue Airbnb (and of course the Host) for that.
In my opinion Airbnb should do some due diligence – they could just look at the listings’ pictures for starters (though that wouldn’t be enough because all the interior/exterior stairs might not be in the pictures). A hotel couldn’t get away with properties that just by the pictures are not in compliance with building codes.
So, maybe this lawsuit – if the law firm’s arguments are strong (and this is a VERY successful law firm) – might be a game-changer for the good in getting Airbnb to accept some responsibility, do some due diligence on the properties listed on its platform, vet/train Hosts, maybe even inspect properties. Well see. [So far it hasn’t hurt the stock price; $94 on the day the suit was filed on 12/14/22; $118 on 3/9/22).
Of course, I’d love to see a court’s opinion on this, but as I said earlier it’ll probably settle since most suits do.