Please read: Pending Lawsuit from Venomous Snake Bite

what are they actualy sueing over? injury? negligence?

i guess it was within in the law but a bad judgment call by the seller.

Originally posted by serpentsden
In there statement it just proves that the mother had prior knowledge the snake was venomous!
I would also never compare any venomous snake bite to a Bee Sting that is just ridiculous.

its funny how you readily post this stuff and delete your own old posts witch make you out to look bad. I wonder how much this will cost you even if you lawyer fees are going to be pretty high. You should file a counter suit because if you win the original case you can sue the mother for all the bad publicity you and your business went threw because of her son.

Errr actually even though e-mail can be altered. If the ones Steve Posted are correct it would be easy to prove that they were sent from the childs home computer and his.

As he posted them in here before the news report my money is on they are real. I still think someone is trying to milk some money though.

Steve that agency we talked about. You may want to call them could be very interesting.

Gather every piece of email correspondence from the mother and son.

Back them up, and print hard copies with headers included. Below is an example of the headers in the email I received from the forum when new posts were made. You want ALL the header information not just the TO: and FROM:

Provide this info to your lawyer. They will contact the internet providers and request email server logs if they're available. Even knowing the date and time the email was sent, and the IP it was sent from in the headers will strengthen the case. If they retain their logs long enough, you may be able to find exact records of the email transactions between servers. Most ISPs dump the logs after a short period of time because of space issues but you may get lucky.

Since the mother and son probably haven't thought their whole scam through, the original email may still be on their computers as well. Make sure your lawyer and the investigating officers are aware of this as well.

Properly presented, email is VERY compelling evidence.

SAMPLE HEADER BEGINS
-------------------------------

From - Wed Mar 31 17:33:34 2004
X-UIDL: f245586a4b47fa85b0103f7c795c56f6
X-Mozilla-Status: 0001
X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000
Return-Path: <sender@blah.com>
X-Original-To: me@crosswinds.net
Delivered-To: me@crosswinds.net
Received: from localhost (mx2.crosswinds.net [216.18.117.46])
by maildrop.crosswinds.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 75F0512D
for <me@crosswinds.net>; Wed, 31 Mar 2004 17:24:03 -0500 (EST)
Received: from mx2.crosswinds.net ([127.0.0.1])
by localhost (mx2.crosswinds.net [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024)
with ESMTP id 51927-13 for <me@crosswinds.net>;
Wed, 31 Mar 2004 17:24:00 -0500 (EST)
Received: from home.fdns01.com (home.fdns01.com [63.247.72.226])
by mx2.crosswinds.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 070E2B4002
for <me@crosswinds.net>; Wed, 31 Mar 2004 17:24:00 -0500 (EST)
Received: from nobody by home.fdns01.com with local (Exim 4.24)
id 1B8o7L-0000fz-NB
for me@crosswinds.net; Wed, 31 Mar 2004 17:23:27 -0500
To: me@crosswinds.net
Subject: Reply to post 'Please read: Pending Lawsuit from Venomous Snake Bite'
From: " FaunaClassifieds Forums Mailer" <sender@blahblah.com>
Message-Id: <E1B8o7L-0000fz-NB@home.fdns01.com>
Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2004 17:23:27 -0500
X-AntiAbuse: This header was added to track abuse, please include it with any abuse report
X-AntiAbuse: Primary Hostname - home.fdns01.com
X-AntiAbuse: Original Domain - crosswinds.net
X-AntiAbuse: Originator/Caller UID/GID - [99 99] / [47 12]
X-AntiAbuse: Sender Address Domain - faunaclassifieds.com
X-Virus-Scanned: by amavisd-new at crosswinds.net

There is a lot of speculation based on hearsay. First, there is no notice of a pending lawsuit. There is no proof that a bite actually happened. There is no proof that the Atheris purchased at the store was the snake that bit the boy, if he was bitten at all. He could have been bitten by a spider and claimed it was the atheris. Futher, there is no proof that if it was an atheris, it was the atheris sold by Steve at the store. The doctors seem very incompetent when it comes to envenomation, so any evidence based on forensic pathology is probably lost.

Other questions rise out of this... Do the State, county or local laws strictly and explicitly state that venomous animals can not be sold to minors? Can it be proven that a sale like that was illegal?

Also, it's generally considered improper for an attorney to contact the defendant directly. Usually there's written notice and then the two lawyers talk. And if a law was broken to the degree everyone is concerned with here, then the State would prosecute this case in the criminal courts. For the "kid" to have a lawyer call and threaten a suit in civil court without a criminal conviction seems like a bluff to me. Either no law was broken or no one can prove who or what bit the kid.

I think a defense lawyer could jam this down the prosecutor's throat and get it thrown out of court.

Quick comment on the Internet provider...It's not that easy to get the history. First, you have to convince the court that the information is so material to the case that it can alter the outcome of the case. Then "if" you get a subpoena, it's only good in the state that the court is in. Most providers are not in the state and even if you try to subpoena the local office, they may not have privy to the history and defer it to the main provider, out of state. Your hope is that they will cooperate with an out of state subpoena, but as a business, they'll prefer to stay out of it and protect the privacy of their customers. And I'm talking about a criminal proceeding! When it comes to a tortious action, the difficulty will be compounded.

Just discovered this 1 1/2 year old thread, that doesn't really end with any resolution. Anyone got an update on how this all played out?

Just discovered this 1 1/2 year old thread, that doesn't really end with any resolution. Anyone got an update on how this all played out?

Originally Posted by jsrocket

Just discovered this 1 1/2 year old thread, that doesn't really end with any resolution. Anyone got an update on how this all played out?

Don't know what happened with the lawsuit (but Serpent's Den does still sell venomous), but the kid recovered and is apparently still keeping hots (he posts on a few forums irregularly).

yeah what happened with this?