Viz.:  (from the wiki article) in a town of 61,000 people, there are 2,337 cars worth more than $50,000 in town.

The town's 2006 Grand List (tax rolls) includes more than $1 billion in assessed values for automobiles, which raised $5.5 million in revenue for the town. Overall, there were 2,337 cars worth more than $50,000 on the list, and there were 3,769 BMWs, 3,474 Mercedes-Benzes, 931 Porsches, 94 Ferraris, 90 Bentleys, 65 Aston Martins, 40 Maseratis, 39 Rolls-Royces, four registered Maybachs (a brand that can retail for up to $385,000), and one Lamborghini. Greenwich has the only authorized Aston Martin dealership in the state.[11]

The median price for a single-family home in town was $1.7 million in 2006, when about 140 properties sold for $5 million or more, according to Prudential Connecticut Realty. In 2007, the highest asking prices for residential property in town were $39.5 million for the 76 acre estate of actor Mel Gibson on Old Mill Road, $19.7 million for a 13,000-square-foot (1,200 m²) mansion on 8.7 acres with a private lake, and $38 million for an estate with formal gardens and a greenhouse the size of a cottage.[12]

Even if - big if - the pool installation company has a good Comprehensive General Liability policy ("CGL") with whatever rider it needs to have full coverage (typically considered to be in the $1 million to $3 million per person per incident range) the wonderful parents of the dead child will surely not be satisfied with merely exhausting the policy.  And, to be sure, the lowly pool installing company guy is certainly considered as some sort of servant by many of the customers, i.e., barely human.  But, the point is, Mummy and Daddy will not be able to recoup enough out of this guy's company, assets and everything, to compensate them for their poor dead child.

I avoided speculating - and did a little research.  The poor dead child's father is the president of one of the largest hedge funds in the world.  From the article:

Police are investigating how the 6-year-old son of the president of one of the world's largest hedge funds drowned in his family's pool.

* * *

As part of the investigation, police were checking the pool's drainage equipment, authorities told the Greenwich Time.

* * *

As president of SAC Capital, which is headed by billionaire Steven Cohen, Mr. Cohn assists in running one of the world's most successful hedge funds, with about $13 billion in assets.

So, what's behind the prosecution?  A noble's son died.  Casting about for some cause other than their own negligence in leaving a six-year old alone in the pool long enough to drown - note how the newspaper article does not say whether the parents were home (The NYP does, but not how close to the pool they were) - the noble parents seize upon criminalizing a tragic accident which, among proles, would be handled by a lawsuit and transfer of money.  Because, of course, the rich are never penalized for their own negligence (like leaving their kid unattended long enough to drown), (see, e.g., Deadeye Dick Cheney and his shooting party), a suitable defendant had to be found.  Casting about for a theory, and seeking to mollify a family which could buy and sell their department, the police decided upon the pool guy.  I mean, what normal kid gets a column written in complete sentences in the NY Post?  Absent being the victim of child abuse?  

And, just to make things a bit spicier, Distraught Dad is suing the local government over the death of the child and the government's having approved the installation.  He quit his job - as hedge fund manager - to work the lawsuit and militate for childrens' safety.  Ohh, boy.

Thus, the town has every interest in laying the blame elsewhere.  Therefore, because the town needs an out, in the police's eyes the child was injured by a member of the servant class, the pool guy, therefore the servant must be sent to the dungeon.  That's what.

And if the contract was a standard one that says that work will be done to local standards, and as it seems that it was not, then he is liable.

Furthermore, I think we all need a little primer on the difference between simple (civil) negligence and criminal negligence.  Criminal negligence is essentially "gross" negligence.  It's extreme negligence.  It isn't a mistake.  It's an action that is taken with conscious disregard of the rights or safety of others.

The only Crim Jig that I could find to cut and paste, from Alaska, but it seems to be pretty standard:

A person acts "with criminal negligence" with respect to a result or circumstance described by a provision of law defining an offense when the person fails to perceive a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the result will occur or that the circumstance exists. The risk must be of such a nature and degree that the failure to perceive it constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of care that a reasonable person would observe in the situation.

Anyway, things that qualify as criminal negligence are things like driving while drunk, driving 100 MPH at night without headlights, etc.  Failing to follow installation instructions for a drain, for me, clearly don't qualify.  It would be different if you could show me a guy who told his men something like, "don't bother installing that safety device - who cares if someone gets sucked into it."

This is exactly the type of case that should probably result in civil liability, but criminal prosecution is ludicrous.  

It reminds me of cases where overzealous prosecutors have gone after doctors on murder or manslaughter charges for medical malpractice cases that resulted in death.  Those types of prosecutions are outrageous and scare the hell out of doctors.  Now, if a doctor is drunk or high while attending to a patient and that intoxication leads to a mistake that directly causes the patient's death, I could support a criminal prosecution.  But other than that, it is just outrageous.

As a college student over 15 years ago, I took a course in Business Ethics. We had a special speaker for one class, then a professor/instructor at my university, who had been the head of Ford's recall department in the mid-late 70's.

We'd been given a "case study" type of reading in advance, and after reviewing it was sure I would've supported a recall decision in the case of the Pinto. Then, I attended class and listened to the speaker. Though he deeply regretted his decision in hindsight, at the time he voted with everyone else at the meeting to not recommend a recall of the vehicle. What surprised me, a raging anti-corporate liberal, was that when he was done I could understand how he reached that decision, and was completely unsure of how I would've acted in his place with the information he had at the time.

Now imagine going to jail if you make a mistake in the installation?  That's freakin' scary.

Civil liability for willfull negligence is one thing...criminal prosecutions are quite another.  I don't think we wanna go there.

it did have some positive fallout though, resulting in the strengthening of the rules regarding mandatory notification of owners, for safety issues, and free repairs/modifications of said vehicles.

in that regard, one could almost say the victims didn't die truly horrific deaths in complete vain. i'd still rather not be the test bunny.

myself, i'm inclined to believe that gross, wilfull negligence, that can reasonably be known to potentialy lead to injury/death, is a criminal act. i believe the law labels it as such also.

that the parents failed in their parental duty is irrelevant; had the proper safety equipment been installed, the child wouldn't have been able to open the cover to begin with.

Affidavit says pool president knew of safety lawBy JOHN CHRISTOFFERSEN | Associated Press Writer
July 23, 2008
NEW HAVEN, Conn. - A swimming pool company president charged with second-degree manslaughter in connection with the drowning of a 6-year-old boy had been told about a law requiring a safety device but failed to install it in the pool, according to an arrest affidavit. [...]

The affidavit quotes Lionetti's attorney as saying Shoreline Pools was not aware that a state law passed in 2003 and effective in 2004 required the device.

But John Romano, past president of the Northeast Pool and Spa Association and president of a pool company in Norwalk, said he told Lionetti about the new law as part of an awareness campaign the trade group conducted in October 2005.

"We had a cordial conversation and he said he would check out and see what the new code was and that he thought that the pools he was building were safe in code compliance with the exception to the SVRS units," Romano said, according to the affidavit.

A town permit was issued for the pool in June 2005 and a certificate of occupancy was issued in August 2006, the affidavit says.

The trade group also sent alerts to Shoreline Pools about code changes, the affidavit said. Numerous employees of Shoreline Pools, including Lionetti, attended annual trade shows where the devices were displayed and marketed, according to the affidavit.

Lionetti failed to attend any continuing education classes in 2006 and 2007 that were required for renewal of his state trade license and his license has lapsed, according to the affidavit. [...]

By charging manslaughter, prosecutors have set a high bar in which they must prove Lionetti knew about the law mandating the safety device and consciously disregarded an unjustifiable risk, Meehan said.

But Jeffrey Meyer, a Quinnipiac law professor and a former federal prosecutor, said prosecutors do not necessarily have to prove Lionetti knew about the law though that would help their case. He said authorities must show he consciously disregarded a substantial and unjustifiable risk.

"It seems to me the state's going to have a pretty strong case given the existence of a clear legal standard," Meyer said.

Charges may be difficult to prove
By Martin B. Cassidy
Staff Writer
Article Launched: 07/23/2008 02:31:16 AM EDT

A manslaughter charge such as that brought against the owner of a company which built a pool in which a 6-year-old died are not unknown, but they can be difficult prosecute successfully, lawyers and academics said yesterday.

Even if Shoreline Pools failed to install safeguard devices required under the state building code, it will be difficult to prove that David Lionetti, its president, was directly responsible and recklessly caused Zachary Archer Cohn's drowning death, said Michael Sherman, a Stamford-based criminal attorney.[...]

Prosecutors could convict Lionetti of manslaughter if they show he chose not to outfit the Cohn's pool with the devices despite knowing of the legal requirement to do so, said Jeffrey Meyer, a professor of criminal procedure at the Quinnipiac School of Law in Hamden.[...]

If Lionetti maintains he was ignorant of the standards, prosecutors could counter with a "willful blindness" argument, that Lionetti deliberately overlooked learning about the building requirements, perhaps to avoid the expense or trouble of following them, Meyer said.

"That can be hard to prove," Meyer said of willful blindness. "The prosecution is going to better off to the extent it can prove he knew the standards than that he should of known them."

Yale Law School Professor Steven Duke said to obtain a conviction for manslaughter prosecutors will have to prove that Lionetti was aware of the serious risk of death posed by not installing the safety features and furthermore that he was aware that employees didn't install the devices in that specific pool.

"I think it quite doubtful that the state can succeed in imposing criminal responsibility on the president of the company vicariously and hold him responsible for what an employee of his company did or failed to do with regard to the pool at issue," Duke said.

Eugene Riccio, a Bridgeport-based criminal defense attorney, said while the case appears unusual, he could imagine a successful prosecution being made on the theory that the missing safety measures reflected a reckless level of disregard for safety.

Under state law, one factor in a manslaughter charge is "recklessness," defined as performing an action with the knowledge of a significant and unjustifiable risk of death or injury to another.

"Manslaughter is not just taking out a gun or a knife and taking somebody's life," Riccio said. "It is not unheard of for business owners to be arrested for something they do in the conduct of their businesses that is deemed illegal and results in death." [...]