Judge awards $1.9 million to family of boy killed by bear
By Aaron Falk, Salt Lake Tribune, May 03 2011 [here]
A federal judge on Tuesday awarded $1.95 million to the family of a young boy killed in a 2007 bear attack.
Samuel Ives, 11, was camping in American Fork Canyon with his mother, step-father and brother when he was ripped from his family’s tent and killed by a black bear on the night of June 17, 2007.
In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball said the U.S. Forest Service was required to warn the family that a dangerous animal was on the loose in canyon after reports that a bear had opened coolers and slashed through a tent in the area earlier that day.
Ives’ family “proved by a preponderance of evidence” that the Forest Service owed them a duty “to warn them about the earlier incident, whether the warning was oral, by posting signs on the gate of Timpooneke Road 56, and/or by roping off the specific campsite,” Kimball wrote.
The boy’s grandmother, Sharon Ives, said Tuesday that her family was “thrilled” with the ruling and happy to put the lawsuit behind them.
“It’s hard enough to lose somebody in a violent manner,” she said, “but to have to keep going through it and reliving it — it’s a nightmare.”
Sharon Ives said Sam’s parents filed the lawsuit “to prevent this from happening to anybody else.”
“Sam was always concerned about everybody else and we thought he would want this,” she said. “Money doesn’t bring him back. We think about him every day.” … [more]