Finding out your child was hurt by another adult’s misconduct can be a heart-stopping moment for any parent, especially if the injury is severe enough to cause long-term or permanent damage. Even if your child will only suffer temporary losses rather than permanent ones, you may still have legal standing to pursue a civil action on their behalf against the person responsible for injuring them.
However, as any experienced personal injury attorney could tell you, this is not a simple task and one you should not have to do by yourself. If you want the best chance of maximizing financial recovery for your child, speaking with a Winter Garden child injury lawyer should be your first step.
To a large extent, child injury litigation works the same as litigation for an injury sustained by an adult. The plaintiff—the person filing suit—must be able to show that a particular defendant was legally negligent in order to hold them financially liable for damages. This means they must establish that the defendant owed a duty of care, violated that duty, and in doing so, directly caused an accident resulting in an otherwise preventable injury.
However, because children cannot represent themselves in civil court, their parent(s) or guardian(s) must step in and act as the plaintiff for them, representing the child’s best interests rather than their own. There are also some circumstances under which a child—or rather, the child’s parent or guardian—might have grounds for a lawsuit when an adult who might have been injured in the same situation would not.
For example, property owners generally are not liable for accidental injuries suffered by people trespassing on their property. However, that restriction may not apply if the injured person was a minor child drawn into trespassing by an unsecured “attractive nuisance” like a swimming pool. A Winter Garden child injury attorney could review a particular situation in detail during a consultation and offer guidance about what sort of litigation might be possible.
It is possible for parents and guardians suing over their child’s personal injury to account for both present and future negative effects that the injury might have on their kid. Both economic and non-economic forms of harm should be taken into consideration, including:
As a child injury lawyer in Winter Garden could explain, parents usually do not have unfettered control over how to manage funds obtained on their child’s behalf through a civil lawsuit. Under state law, parents and guardians must obtain court approval for any proposed settlement over $15,000 in value, and they will be subject to various additional restrictions on how the money must be held and maintained until the child is old enough to take control of it.
No child should ever be hurt solely because an adult around them acted in a careless or reckless way. If your family is currently dealing with an unimaginable situation such as this, getting help from The Umansky Law Firm Criminal Defense and Injury Attorneys could be crucial to minimizing the impact it has on you and your child moving forward.
A Winter Garden child injury lawyer understands how difficult this is for you and knows what is needed to bring it to a satisfying resolution. Learn more by calling our team today.
The Umansky Law Firm Criminal Defense & Injury Attorneys
