Even though parents try to keep their children completely safe at all times, the bumps and bruises from minor accidents are a natural part of growing up. Unfortunately, there are times when another adult’s negligent conduct inflicts serious injuries on a child, sometimes causing them long-term or permanent consequences.
If your child suffered harm because another person acted recklessly or carelessly around them, a Memphis child injury lawyer could help you exercise your legal right to file suit against them for compensation. With help from a Board-certified personal injury attorney like David E. Gordon, who has experience handling these sensitives types of claims, you could hold an irresponsible person accountable not just for the short-term harm you and your child sustained, but also for the impact their behavior will have on your family in the years to come.
What Injuries Could Justify Civil Litigation?
Children are especially susceptible to suffering physical harm in incidents like car crashes and bus crashes, accidents involving swimming pools, defects in consumer products, and mistakes by medical professionals. Furthermore, since young children may still be growing and developing, the long-term effects they end up dealing with could have a catastrophic impact on their physical, emotional, and/or cognitive development.
The threshold for what kind of injuries might justify litigation is straightforward—if a child sustains harm that requires professional medical care of any kind, their parent or guardian may be able to file suit on their behalf. Where things get complicated is in proving that such an injury stemmed directly from another person or entity’s violation of a “duty of care” through a careless, reckless, or intentional act.
Fortunately, adults sometimes owe more extensive duties to minors than they do to adults, which can make civil recovery easier in some situations. For example, while property owners have virtually no duty to protect adult trespassers from hazardous property conditions, they do have a responsibility to protect trespassing minors from “attractive nuisances” like construction equipment or an unfenced swimming pool. A local child injury attorney like David can explain in more detail what circumstances could serve as grounds for a case.
Staying Within Filing Deadlines
Since personal injury lawsuits are meant to allow recovery for specific compensable losses that an injured client can trace back to someone else’s negligence, an injured child—or their parent or guardian working on their behalf—can recover for both the economic and non-economic losses of that accident. Depending on the situation, recoverable damages that a Memphis child accident lawyer can help a client pursue may include:
- Past and future medical expenses, including those for outpatient rehabilitative care
- The child’s loss of future earning capacity
- Loss of wages, if a parent or guardian takes time off work to care for their injured child
- The child’s loss of enjoyment of life
- The child’s physical and emotional suffering
Furthermore, the one-year statutory filing period that applies to most claims in Tennessee generally does not begin for prospective child injury cases until the minor in questions turns 18. However, for the parent to recover the medical expenses that they incurred on behalf of the child, the suit must be brought within one year from the incident.
Talk to a Memphis Child Injury Attorney About Legal Options
State civil law is more generous when it comes to child injury claims than it is for claims regarding adults, but that does not mean recovering fair compensation after this kind of incident is a simple matter. Defense lawyers and insurance agents will fight hard to keep you from getting the compensation your child deserves, and you may have slim odds of triumphing over them without seasoned legal counsel of your own.
A Memphis child injury lawyer from the Law Office of David E. Gordon can provide the assistance you need to seek a positive outcome to your case. Learn more by calling today.
