Statement from Rich Taylor (LACR Lawsuit)

So the cliffnotes are,  

The kid seems to have healed up and is still charging, he probably has some long term aches and pains from it. Welcome to the club. Glad you're back on 2 wheels and living what appears to be a very nice life (in the grand scheme).

Luckily LACR is still open. 

Fuck RT, he could have easily drawn attention to this and made a plea to all tracks to have more concern for potential hazards, and could have started a go fund me to cover medical expenses.  He chose to attack the track and potentially get it shut down for good. So fuck you. 

Fuck EKS

Fuck lawyers too.

True negligence such as a tractor on the track during a moto or having a jump over a pit of fire breathing dragons. 

There is no difference. Take the Hangtown track, for example. Fences lining the track, very closely, in a bunch of places. If you get whiskey throttle coming out of the rollers where Phil crashed, you are going into a fence with wood posts. But guess what? That fence is there to keep the trail riders on the OHV land off the track on ride days. So it's absolutely needed, or else the hazard would be worse.

To your second point, I think the general consensus has been equipment on or VERY near the track. Maybe there would be other situations, but in my mind that's about it as far as gross negligence would go. 

Every single time I ever raced or practiced, at the end of the day when I'm taking my gear off....I ALWAYS said it was a successful day if I'm walking out of here. That's just the nature of our sport. 

I had the same assumption. How it's presented and thinking it justified suing the track feels reeaaalllll sleezy.

With motocross having such an amazing community in general, threads like this or claimgate or the AJ ripoff thread are just so disappointing... There's a real "fuck everyone else" attitude by some people behind the scenes.

I'm out, I am glad the lad recovered well, for what that's worth.

How about this, Rich Taylor....

Since your son is clearly healed enough to enjoy life as most of us are able, and you seemingly want the moto world to think your motives were pure in this whole debacle, where did that money go? You made a public statement in an attempt to sway the masses to your side, by telling "the truth."

If your motive all along was to just bring awareness to track issues and negligence, and by association injury costs due to those instances, maybe that money got donated to Road to Recovery? One wonders....

Ok, im on the same page then. A dozer or something on the track after being given an all clear would be the only viable reason. If i wasnt too badly hurt id just wanna fight the operator and person sending people out. If it was life altering, maybe. 

When i ref'd a few AMA races, i looked for dangers. Flag poles or track markers in unsafe areas, things like that.. A berm with a safe to roll over backside isnt something id demand be changed.

Why didnt forker sue for landing head first on concrete after a whiskey moment? He didn't. 

Other than that, this one is BS and Rich and his brands are a black eye on an already fragile sport. 

Gopros flatten stuff out more than other cameras. I have about 30 feet of elevation  on my backyard track/trails and it looks almost flat in the videos.  So its hard for me to say that it was not that bad. From the video and screen shots , I would agree it doesn't look that bad. But I know what the 30 foot hill looks like on my videos and its hard to tell there is a hill there. I was expecting an area that was not a smooth graded area like it looks like in the screen shots.   

Other than having a long straight with a tall berm at the end , its hard for me to see that it stands out from many other tracks.  But at the same time, I would not build a section like that on my property or if I was helping build a track.  So many things can go wrong on a long straight downhill.  If they had a smaller berm, it could be safer . Might result in less lines , or being a more difficult corner. But safer if You blew through it. 

Back in the late 90's before I started to race. I was at a local track watching a race and they have a big berm of dirt built up around 1/2 to 3/4 of the track to help keep the sound from traveling. Well at the time there was a long flat straight with a flat corner 40 or so feet before the berm. And one guys throttle go stuck wide open and he shot off the top of the  berm. It was 15 to 20 feet tall.  He went maybe 15 to 20 feet up above the top of the berm. There were pine trees on the other side. He bailed off the bike and the bike went 60ish feet up into the air. It was crazy. He walked away from it. I don't know if he had any injuries or not. The backside of the berm was soft and the pine tree branches also helped. His bike was bent up badly. I walked over after it was all cleared up and his bike had landed a few feet away from a compactor that was used at the landfill  next door to the track. One of those big rollers with the sharp teeth on the drum to help compact better. The next time I was at that track it was changed and the roller was gone. Keep in mind this roller was out in the woods behind a 20 foot tall wall of dirt and might have been out there for 20 years before . I doubt that anybody who rode the track knew it was even there since it was way out back and behind a berm out in the woods.    

I can't believe this turned out to be it. If that really is it, then I don't understand using the word "cliff". You can't ride down a cliff, no matter how slow you go, so can you not just ride down that..? Because it looks like you could just ride down it. What you can't do, is send it, but there are at least a dozen jumps or berms on every track that you can't send. The incline make the drop unfavorable, but holy shit, welcome to outside. It's not all a flat parking lot. The only way this would work as negligence, in my opinion from riding local NorCal tracks since 1991, would be if they parked some piece of heavy equipment on the other side that wasn't visible from the seat, so that even if you accidentally rolled over it, you were smashing into a dozer, or water truck, or something like that.

Go pros have a way of flattening things out so take my screenshots with a grain of salt, especially the second one where he's laying on the ground, it looks like the exit of the berm makes the backside angle much less steep than the first screenshot. 

I'm not a lawyer, but I've heard that if you make "improvements" to land like building jumps your potential liability goes way up compared to if the land is natural. So if a harescramble racer runs into a tree it's not the same as someone getting hurt on an mx track that was build by a person. 

Take home from this should be if you are a track owner or builder don't build elevated berms with no run-off. There should be about an access lane of width between the outside of a corner and another track lane, hillside, water, fence, anything that could be a hazard. This gives you the cover that you did risk mitigation when the obstacles are navigated under "normal" racing conditions. It might not work in court but it's better than nothing. 

Situations like this are why it's tough to have people ride on your private property. If the AMA had it's act together it would be pushing for OHV immunity laws in states like the equine immunity laws many states have instead of lobbying against helmet laws.

https://codes.ohio.gov/ohio-revised-code/section-2305.321

Another take home should be if you think a track is dangerous it's better to pack up and ruin your day than crash in the dangerous spot and ruin your body.

 MXa did a nice fluff piece on Eks a while back…. Wonder if they knew about the litigation? 

Nailed it....

Very reasonable thinking and a great suggestion for improving our tracks!

Two lawsuits come to mind right away where I would have considered a lawsuit if it happened to me, or fully backed someone if they decided to file suit. 

1) Riverdale MX park up here in Toutle, Wa. (Called Toutle MX Now I believe). I think it was an open practice day. If I remember right, the water truck entered the track before they completely cleared it and a teenager collided with the water truck and died. 

2) Durhamtown: The owner was taking out trees with an excavator and (from what I understood after reading the massive $22 million judgement) one of the trees he was working on came down on a passing rider and killed him. I think the same owner was also made to pay $15 million to another rider. 

I’m sure there’s more I don’t know about, but owners or operators taking out riders with heavy equipment would definitely be one of the only things that rises to the level of gross negligence that justifies a lawsuit against the track in my mind. Going whiskey throttle over a big sand berm with a gnarly drop on the backside is not one of them. I can’t count the times I looked at a section and knew if I fcked it up it could be over for me—especially when I was racing a lot of areanacross. 

Only type I can think of is leaving a dozer parked on the track and letting a gate drop, or similar. Virtually every other risk can be mitigated by a rider choosing not to ride.

The arguments about it not being customary to walk a track are bullshit. That’s just another choice someone makes. I was raised to walk the track and to take a slow lap. 
 

I have ridden around obstacles I felt were unsafe for me (or rolled them in a race) and have loaded up and gone home if I felt conditions overall were unsafe. 
 

I’ve been injured numerous times, a couple times on some pretty questionable tracks. 
 

I was about 50 feet away when the Galloping Ghost hit the crowd at the Air Races in 2011, and saw things I’ll never purge from my memory.

Ive been rear-ended on the freeway, causing neck pain ever since.

Not only have I never sued, but it’s never even been a consideration…and I’m not wealthy by anyone’s definition.

I like to think I'm a pretty open minded person.  I agree to disagree a lot and move on.   For the life of me I can't figure out how someone could read Rich's statement then say "See it's not as bad Cooksey made it out to be".  It's 10x worse, especially from an industry guy.  Cookseys delivery is pretty douchey at times but damn.....

Cliffs. One into water is a 30' cliff.

I see no resemblance.

Is the kid Zach now in a wheelchair for the rest of his life or need to use a bag for the rest of his life because of internal injuries? Or has he been back riding and that crash didn’t keep him off a bike? If they sued the track, I’d expect them to never throw a leg over another dirt bike again because it scared the hell out of the whole family. If he’s riding again, then why sue? Maybe the kid didn’t have health insurance and he was under 18 so the financial burden was on the parents? A hospital stay with 28 broken bones is going to be one hell of an expensive stay. 

The whole “you signed a waiver” thing always makes me smile. This view people have that if you signed one you have no case is alarming. A waiver might protect the operator of a business to some extent but it does not protect them if they are found to be guilty of gross negligence which I assume in this case the lawyers for the injured rider were able to prove was the case.

The people responsible for the event should always be looking at the track and thinking what would happen if the worst case scenario played out here. 
 

Which is why it still amazes me we have flat concrete on the outside of supercross tracks to this day. It shouldn’t be about “will someone  take me to court”, it should be about “is my facility as safe as it can be to prevent someone getting hurt”

I agree that from the images and video shown it doesn't stand out as  much more dangerous than something You could find on just about any MX track if You hit it the wrong way.  I would like to see some images that make it look like the cliff that has been described .   

There have to be some photos of the area that at least make it look bad . I would think they had to have some photos for court.  I don't expect to hear anything more from Rich officially on this. I'm glad that he owned what he did. I don't like the idea of suing a track ever. But I am not a father and its hard to get into the frame of mind I might be if I had a kid that got hurt that badly. I think if it was me , I would feel horrible for not checking the track out before the race and doing something. Either talking to my kid and telling him how bad it could be to crash there and maybe putting some sort of plan together for how he should ride that area. Or not letting him ride. I would feel like it was my fault .  But I can understand that when You have a talented kid , You start to trust their judgement on things. It just sucks all around really.

I hope that this can have some good come from it. Perhaps more Dad's will walk the tracks before letting their kids race. 

I know that Rich is the owner of EKS brand, but there are 100's of maybe 1000's of people who also make a living off of selling his products. So that makes it hard for me to be on board with any actions against the brand.  I say this as a shop that is NOT currently selling the brand. We have sold them in the past , and only stopped selling them because of distributor changes.  Yah the shops that make money off them can just sell other brands. But if they have a lot in stock, it is not likely that they can return them all.  And there are warehouse workers ,etc. at the company who were not a part of the suing. So that makes it harder for me. If it was a single person company and would only impact Rich negatively than that would be different. Is it worth hurting all of those other great people to take a little money from Rich?  That should be factored into the decision in my opinion.  

"It just sucks all around really"  

Sums up this deal.  

Rich should invest half of the settlement into bettering the facility if he wants to save any kind of face. 

They should have just made that an off-camber...problem solved.

That's what i think.  I think the financial burden was too great for the alleged victim to handle.  I think most of the money won in the lawsuit may have gone towards medical bills.  I don't think that the family is question is now living in the lap of luxury because of this incident.  

i'm with the group that believes that we are responsible for ourselves when we hit the track.  Safety is a choice as a rider.  The track owners do the best they can....nobody's raking in the money from owning a track that isn't on the national circuit.  Maybe they do well enough but with the increasing operating costs and only charging $30-35 for an open ride isn't going to cut it.  When taken collectively...these types of lawsuits will absolutely increase the cost of riding motocross. 

Sounds like the plaintiff is healed and doing well and i'm glad for that at least.  he's the innocent one in all of this and i hope he doesn't get thrown through the wringer.

All of you arguing about whether it was a cliff or different than other berms etc were not there, but Rick Ryan was and testified under oath.  I trust a prior pro that was there in person more than any Go Pro footage or pictures....which absolutely does not show grade accurately.   

So, the berm was dangerous and built poorly.  Regardless, in my opinion it is up to the riders and their parents (if minors) to be sure they know the track and try to be as safe as possible.  I honesty cannot believe RT sued the track even with the terrible injuries.  Asking the industry for support, using the scenario to make other tracks better, or really anything else.  It's like suing a family member.  Maybe the owners wronged him in the past or something.  Who knows, but it smells like shit, so therefore......it is.

If Rich saw the berm and was aware of the danger prior to the race would he have still let his kid race? My guess is yes.

Was the berm dangerous and should have been changed? I think so, but depending on what track worker was talked to I wouldn't expect any action.  It would be like telling a the guy at McDonalds taking orders that the meals should be healthier and suing if the menu isn't changed when I have a heart attack.   
 

I think a better look for rich would have been to use his platform to spread the message about making tracks as safe as possible.  Maybe if they used some of that money so good could come of it.  

he's legally within his rights, but whether this will accomplish anything worthwhile for his family and the community is certainly the question.

they have a case for gross negligence if the jury finds the risk was unnecessary and not reasonably foreseeable by the plaintiff(s) during the course & scope of activity voluntarily entered into. 

Has anything like this ever happened at an off-road race? Most races are just ribboned and arrowed off lots of possible stumps and trees obviously to get seriously hurt on. If a precedent is set about the dangers of how a track either motocross or offroad is "routed" near dangers seems like opening a can of worms. 

blind trees and stumps are a part of the sport and are reasonably foreseeable. if there is a mineshaft directly in the middle of a ribboned course, that would be an unforeseeable risk. 

So based off of what Rich used to sue....a steep area off the back side of a berm.....wouldn't the side of any jump on a track be the same thing?

If his kid gets at a bad angle and jumps off the side of a table top to flat ground is he going to sue?

I was firmly in the camp of defending RT when this first popped up cause I assumed it was his insurance company suing, now that he has a made a statement about it and we've seen some photos.....guy seems like a grade a douche bag to me.