mstevens
Well-Known Member
Nope. He's 22, so that'd be his responsibility.
When my kid was a minor, I bore some responsibility for things he might have damaged, but not for every possible thing. Kids are kids. It's reasonable to expect them to act like kids. It's not reasonable to expect them to act like anything other than kids.
For example, if my kid were having a squirt gun fight at the town beach and a guy decided to walk through the fray and his cellphone got soaked, that's not the kids' fault. If the owner of the ice cream stand puts up a swingset on the grass and it turns out that it's a valuable antique meant as decoration and that swinging on it causes damage, it's the owner's responsibility to make it clear that it's not really intended as the playground equipment it looks like - unless they fence it off or something, nobody could blame a kid for swinging on it. There are countless other examples of situations in which a child could damage someone's property without being liable.
Another example would be flying a toy drone over a bunch of kids at least one of whom has a squirtgun so near that it's easily hit by a squirtgun. Kids are likely to view toys as toys and to think it's appropriate to play with them. Dangle a toy in front of a kid, and you should not be surprised when that kid tries to interact with it in a playful way.
There's no justification for flying that close to people unless you've arranged that with them ahead of time. Just because some of them know you doesn't mean they know it's your drone in this instance (your Mavic probably looks a lot like mine or the one that one kid's dad owns) nor is it reasonable to assume that non-enthusiasts can really tell little toy drones apart. Who's to say that girl doesn't know someone who plays chicken with her squirtgun using their Mavic? Who's to say she hasn't been being harassed by the convicted pedophile who lives in her neighborhood and has a small, dark drone?
Even if I know exactly who is operating a drone, if I'm in a public area using normal sporting equipment or toys for such a location and you get your drone close enough to me that I can get annoyed and bat it out of the way with my badminton racket, horseshoe, beach umbrella, cricket bat, lasso, or squirtgun, then you were flying far too close to me for safety and comfort. I would have no reservations at all about defending such an action in court.
Since you were flying in Visual Line of Sight (right?), you were near enough to see that they were playing with squirtguns and should have been near enough to tell them by voice that it was you flying that drone and not some anonymous creep.
Imagine going to court and having to address not only the issue of "got close to playing kids, yet was surprised when a kid played", needing to deal with the issue of "why would a responsible operator fly within squirtgun range of people?" but also having to contend with the appearance that you were leering down the tops of pubescent girls with your spy drone.
If you did arrange with those kids (and their parents, since it sounds as if you think they were all minors) ahead of time and they agreed that you could take close-up drone video of them in their swimsuits in the water and one of them decided to splash your drone, then I'd agree it's her responsibility. Otherwise, I maintain that it's the operator's issue and you need to grow up and accept responsibility instead of trying to shift it to a kid.
