Man Sued for $15,000
on 'Piggy-Back' Ride

    It will be a long time, says Runo Nurmi, before he agrees to give another neighbor's kid a "piggy-back" ride.
    The last one he agreed to give has made him the target of a $15,000 damage suit.
    It started, according to papers filed in Fairfax County Circuit Court yesterday, in the front yard of Nurmi's Pimmit Hills home, 2008 Cherry drive, on July 24.
    Just about dusk, Nurmi was accommodating 11-year-old Frankie Wynkoop, who lives across the street at 2013 Cherry dr. The youth was clinging with his arms around Nurmi's neck and his legs around his waist.
    It was Nurmi's fault, the suit charges, that the youth loosened his grasp and toppled backward to strike his head on the pavement.
    But Nurmi says the boy fell after he set him down on a car fender. The 26-year-old construction worker said he had asked the boy to get off and believed he had freed himself as he moved away from the car.
    The boy suffered head injuries which, doctors tell the family, might yet result in a concussion. At any rate, Frankie's father is suing Nurmi for $10,000 for injuries and another $5000 for "pain and suffering."
    The boy may not be able to start the seventh grade at Pimmit Hills Elementary School this fall, his mother said. He has been told to "keep quiet" for the next three months.
    And "that," his mother said, "is a big order."

Source:

Unknown, "Man Sued for $15,000 on 'Piggy-Back' Ride," Washington Post and Times Herald, Washington, D.C., Tuesday, 2 August, 1960, p. B14.