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Brandon Patch, 18, lived with his parents, Duane and Deb, in Miles City, Mont., a small cowboy town where he played for a team called the Mavericks.

Brandon Patch died when a baseball hit by an aluminum bat struck him in the head in 2003. Patch was the pitcher and died within hours after suffering the head injury. Patch’s family sued the bat maker.

The Patch family said the bat maker failed to warn that its aluminum product caused the ball to travel at a faster speed than the traditional wooden bat.

A Montana jury on Wednesday awarded the parents of an 18-year-old boy $850,000 after their son, Brandon Patch, was killed in an American Legion game in  Helena in 2003, judge ordered Hillerich and Bradsby to pay the compensation to the Patch family. Ms Patch said she had never expected to be awarded money from the lawsuit as her goal was to force the maker to warn people about the potential dangers of the aluminum bat.

The maker of Louisville Slugger baseball bats manufacturer, Hillerich & Bradsby, did not provide proper warning about the dangers of using aluminum bats, meaning that the jury did not find the bat itself to be defective. The special verdict says the failure to warn was the cause of the accident.