Bronx Child Injury Attorney
Seeing your child suffer a serious injury of any type can cause devastation, not just emotionally, but to your family’s finances as well. When someone else’s negligence causes your child’s injury, you may find yourself seeking not only justice, but also compensation for the losses your family faced due to the accident. At Jacoby & Meyers LLP, we can help you better understand the compensation you may qualify to seek for the losses your child and your family have faced. Contact us today at (718) 294-0813 to learn more about your right to seek compensation after your child suffers a serious accident.
Jacoby & Meyers LLP Child Accident Claim Results
At Jacoby & Meyers LLP, we have represented clients in a variety of personal injury claims. Some of our past successes include:
- $950,000 to the family of a child who suffered severe burns due to landlord negligence
- $2,650,000 in a birth malpractice settlement
Our results in these claims cannot guarantee future results for any clients. Working with Jacoby & Meyers LLP can, however, offer several advantages to your Bronx child injury claim, including:
Assistance Investigating All the Details of Your Child’s Accident
If your child suffered serious injuries due to another party’s negligence, your attorney will work to determine all parties that may have contributed to your child’s injuries and any evidence that will help establish those parties’ negligence. Suppose, for example, that your child suffered an accident at a hotel. Did the hotel cause the accident? Did a vendor operating at the hotel cause the accident? An attorney will help investigate the situation and any potential details of the incident to help you maximize your compensation.
Most of the time, the law does not hold children liable for their injuries in the same way as adults. Children do not have the same knowledge of the world that most adults have, and children may not fully understand “risky” or “dangerous” behavior as well as an adult does. As a result, the duty to maintain the child’s safety usually falls on adults around the child, rather than on the child. However, a thorough investigation can reveal how negligence contributed to the accident and what parties may share liability.
In many cases, an attorney may identify more than one party that contributed to your child’s accident. Identifying multiple parties means that you can file a claim against each one, which can increase the compensation your family receives for your child’s injuries.
Information About the Compensation Your Family Deserves
When your child suffers severe injuries in an accident, you want to make sure that you provide the best medical care possible. You may also need to make other changes to your daily life. Unfortunately, those expenses may leave your family dealing with significant mental and financial stress. Worse, some insurance companies may not offer you the compensation to cover the full costs of your child’s injuries. By working closely with an experienced Bronx child injury attorney, however, you can get more information about the funds your child deserves and the distribution of those funds.
“I had an amazing experience with Jacoby & Meyers, LLP. I would highly recommend them for anyone needing a law firm.” -Paul T.
Common Types of Child Injuries
Children suffer accidents more easily and more frequently than adults. Because children rely on the adults around to keep the children safe, they may find themselves in dangerous situations more easily and without realizing the potential consequences of their actions.
Some of the most common child injuries include:
Birth Injuries
Birth injuries may occur when a physician’s error during birth results in injuries to the child. Decreased blood flow or oxygen during birth, for example, can lead to severe injuries that may have long-term impacts on a child’s life and brain function. Birth injuries might also include bruising, especially from forceps, broken bones, and dislocated shoulders, all potential results of a rough birthing process.
Birth injuries usually get treated as medical malpractice claims; the attending physician and the hospital, including the nurses, bear a high duty of care to ensure that both mother and baby remain safe during the birthing process. When injuries occur due to those professionals’ negligence, doctors and medical care facilities may bear liability.
Product Liability
Children may use products differently than adults or may have unique needs when interacting with those products. In many cases, children may suffer severe injuries due to defective products: products intended to bear their weight, but which do not bear that weight properly, for example. In other cases, products may cause serious injury to children who use them; electronics that get too hot may cause severe burns, for example.
Product manufacturers, especially those that manufacture products intended for children, must carefully test their products to ensure that they do not pose an undue hazard to the children that use them. Not only should product manufacturers include warning labels that will let users know about any potential hazards, but also companies should exercise care, especially when producing products for children, to ensure that those products have the necessary components to keep their users as safe as possible. When product manufacturers fail to uphold this duty, they may bear liability for any injury suffered by someone who uses those products and sustains an injury, including a child.
Premises Liability
Premises liability often becomes tricky when children are involved. Many children lack the self-restraint and reasoning skills to, for example, stay away from a neighbor’s swimming pool or trampoline, especially if unsupervised.
If a child has the legal right to visit a property, or if the owners of that property do not exercise adequate care to secure the property, the owners may bear liability for an accident.
Potential accidents include:
- Swimming pool accidents
- Playground equipment accidents
- Slip and fall accidents
- Accidents at school
- Accidents that occur at a friend’s house
School Bus Accidents
Every day, thousands of children in the Bronx ride the bus to get to and from school. While school buses provide a vitally-needed transportation option that can make it easier to get children to school or take them home again at the end of the day, school buses also pose immense potential for injury. Children can suffer serious injuries either while riding on the bus or while getting on or off the bus. In many cases, the school bus driver’s negligence may cause an accident. In other cases, your child may suffer serious injuries due to another driver’s negligence. Consult an attorney to learn more about how you can file for compensation for your child’s school bus-related injuries.
Improper Healing
The accident may cause children to suffer serious injuries or illnesses throughout their lifetimes. Often, that means they need medical assistance. Like adults, children should receive a high quality of care that will help ensure that they have the best possible outcome and healing for their medical problems. Doctors treating children, however, face a unique challenge: many children do not communicate as well as adults and may have a harder time expressing how they feel or how their injuries occurred. Children may also have a harder time following instructions about wound or injury care, which means that they rely on their parents and their doctors to provide a high standard of care despite those limitations.
If your child does not heal properly following injury or illness due to negligence on the part of your medical provider, that medical provider may bear liability for your child’s suffering and for any additional medical bills sustained due to that lack of care.
Road Accidents
Every year, many children suffer severe accidents while playing near the road: riding on it with their bicycles, walking on it, or playing in the yard and darting out after a toy as it rolls away. Unfortunately, road accidents can cause severe injuries, especially when children play unsupervised.
Often, the driver bears liability for an accident that takes place on the road.
To determine the driver’s liability, your attorney may ask:
- Should the driver have reasonably seen your child? If your child darted out onto the road without warning, for example, the driver may have had little time to slow or stop, leading to more serious injuries and reducing the driver’s liability.
- Did the driver follow the rules of the road? Speeding in a residential neighborhood, for example, can make it much harder to see what happens around the vehicle and increase the severity of injuries to a child who darts out into the road.
- Did the driver become distracted—for example, by checking a cell phone or even eating or drinking behind the wheel?
- Did the driver suffer from inebriation at the time of the accident?
The Compensation You Can Expect After a Bronx Child Accident
If your child suffers serious injuries, what compensation should you expect? Compensation often tops the list of parental concerns following an accident. Consult an attorney to learn more about how much compensation your family, specifically, should expect after a Bronx child accident, since the compensation you can expect may depend on several factors, including the extent of your child’s injuries. You may also want to check with an attorney concerning how much of your child’s award you can access before your child reaches adulthood, since much of the money from your child’s accident may go into a trust for your child.
Most people include the same basic elements in a child injury claim, including:
Your Child’s Medical Expenses
Treatment for serious injuries can quickly grow very expensive, especially if your child suffers injuries that may cause lifelong limitations or require long-term care.
You can include compensation for your child’s medical expenses as part of your Bronx child injury claim, including:
- Emergency treatment
- A stay in the hospital
- Surgery or other treatment for your child’s injuries
- Follow-up appointments
- Necessary durable medical equipment
- Physical or occupational therapy
- Psychological therapy, if needed
Modifications to Your Home or Vehicle
Not only can a child’s injuries leave you with substantial medical expenses, but you may also need to make expensive modifications to your home to make it possible for your child to live there comfortably. For example, if your child ends up in a wheelchair following a spinal cord injury, you may need to install wheelchair ramps or widen doorways to make it possible for your child to get safely in and out of your home. You may also need to purchase a wheelchair-equipped vehicle so that you can more easily get your child in and out of the car.
Payment for modifications usually extends to permanent modifications intended to aid in accessibility for a child who has suffered life-altering injuries. If your child needs to use a wheelchair temporarily due to leg injuries, but will likely recover within a few weeks or months, for example, you may not have the right to include those home and vehicle modifications as part of your claim, since you will not need them long-term.
Caregiving Expenses
After severe injuries, many children need round-the-clock care. Sometimes, a parent provides that care. You may need to give up your job or take a leave of absence to care for your child, which can cause even more financial hardship during an already difficult period of your life. In other cases, you may need to hire a caregiver: someone to come in and give you some respite at night, for example, or someone who can care for your child while you go to work or take care of other tasks around the home. You may choose to include caregiver expenses as part of your Bronx child injury claim, especially if you need to provide long-term care for your child.
Pain and Suffering
Injuries can cause substantial suffering for many children. Severe injuries may, for example, prevent your children from engaging in some of their favorite hobbies. Serious accidents may keep your child at home, suffering from severe social isolation instead of enjoying time with peers. Not only that, the accident may cause severe physical pain for your child. In some cases, that pain may continue for the rest of your child’s life. An attorney can provide you with more information about how to include your child’s pain and suffering as part of your child injury claim.
Finding the Liable Party in a Bronx Child Injury Accident
To file a Bronx child injury claim, an attorney will start by identifying the party or parties that caused or contributed to your child’s accident and injuries. The attorney will consider:
Who bore a duty of care to your child at the time of the accident?
When it comes to children, most people and entities must exercise increased care to prevent injury and keep the child as safe as possible. For example, schools owe their students a high duty of care, and school bus drivers may need to exercise more caution than drivers who primarily transport adults.
How did the liable party or parties violate that duty of care?
The attorney might, for example, ask what act of negligence caused your child’s injuries. Did someone fail to properly maintain a playground, leading to broken equipment? Did your child suffer injuries at school due to bullying that resulted from poor teacher attention? Did your child suffer injuries because of a distracted driver?
How did that violation lead to your child’s injuries?
To file a Bronx child injury claim, you will need to show that the liable party violated its duty of care to your child in a way that led to your child’s injuries. For example, a drunk driver swerving down your street while your child plays out in the yard does violate the driver’s duty of care to your child and everyone else in the neighborhood, but if the driver does not strike your child, you do not have grounds to file a child injury claim. Likewise, if your child’s school bus collides with another vehicle due to negligence on the part of the bus driver, but your child suffers no injury, you do not have grounds for a Bronx child injury claim.
Talk to an attorney to learn more about how to file a Bronx child injury claim and how to determine the party that may bear liability for your child’s injuries.
Bronx Child Injury FAQ
You may have substantial questions about your legal rights following any accident in which your child suffers severe injuries. Below, we attempt to answer some of the most common questions asked by many family members of child injury victims. If you have specific questions about your child’s accident and your legal rights, contact the experienced team of attorneys at Jacoby & Meyers LLP as soon as possible.
The accident that led to your child’s injuries may have created significant trauma in your child’s life. You may feel that your child has more than enough to deal with and worry that a Bronx child injury claim will just make things worse.
In most cases, however, a Bronx child injury claim will not traumatize your child at all. Your child doesn’t need to have heavy involvement in the process. Most of the investigation will take place without needing to discuss anything with your child. Instead, the attorneys at Jacoby & Meyers LLP will work with you to help you seek compensation for the costs associated with your child’s accident.
Most child injury claims settle out of court. Not only does taking the claim to court increase the cost needed to deal with Bronx child injury claims, leading most insurance companies and legal teams to recommend settling out of court if at all possible, but also many organizations want to avoid the bad press that could arise if they take a child injury claim to court, particularly if they lose.
If your child’s claim does need to go to court for you to reach a favorable resolution, then having an experienced attorney on your side can make it easier for you to present evidence, argue your claim, and ensure that your child’s rights are protected.
Sometimes, the party liable for your child’s accident, or the insurance company that covers that party, will contact you shortly after your child’s accident. That party may try to convince you to accept a settlement offer that will put fast cash in your family’s pockets. Often, child injury victims and their families want to take that offer because it seems like a ready solution to immediate financial troubles. Unfortunately, that offer may not reflect the full value of your Bronx child injury claim.
Instead, talk to an attorney about the compensation you need to cover all of the costs associated with your child’s accident; also discuss when you should consider accepting a settlement offer versus when you should continue to negotiate. In many cases, an attorney can help you decide what to do about a settlement offer.
In most cases, if your child suffers a serious injury in New York, the statute of limitations does not start counting down until your child reaches adulthood. As a result, you have plenty of time to decide how to handle your child’s claim. Children also have the option to file a claim after their eighteenth birthday, if their parents or guardians have not yet filed a claim.
Sometimes, however, you may have a more limited time to open a claim on your child’s behalf. If your child suffered an accident due to the negligence of a government entity—in a school bus accident, for example—you may need to file a claim sooner to help your child seek compensation for injuries. Contact an attorney soon after your child’s accident to learn more about the statute of limitations in child injury claims and how you can best help your child maximize injury compensation.
A portion of the funds for a Bronx child injury claim can go to you, as the parents, to help pay for your child’s medical expenses related to the accident. Other funds, such as compensation for pain and suffering, are usually set aside until your child reaches adulthood. Often, a judge will place those funds into a trust, where your child cannot access them until his or her twenty-first birthday. This strategy helps ensure that children can access the funds received for their injuries in the future.
In general, assume that any funds from your child’s claim belong to your child. To access those funds yourself, you may need to show intent to use them for your child’s care. You may need, for example, to access those funds to pay your child’s medical expenses or to make modifications to your home that will make it possible for your child to get in and out freely. You may not, however, simply dip into your child’s claim funds for your personal needs.
In some cases, if your child suffers a serious injury while playing at a friend’s house, you may have grounds to file a Bronx child injury claim against the owners of the property. Those owners should carry homeowner’s insurance, which will help provide compensation for your financial losses related to the accident. To file a claim, you will need to show that the owners’ negligence caused your child’s injuries. For example, if the owners have a big dog that attacks your child during normal play, the owners may bear liability for the injuries your child suffers.
Likewise, if your child drowns in a friend’s swimming pool due to poor adult supervision, you may have grounds for a wrongful death claim. Consult an attorney to learn more about your right to compensation after your child suffers injuries on a friend’s property and how you can file a claim against a private homeowner.
Immediately after an accident, you may struggle with what steps you need to take. You cannot go back and prevent your child’s injuries, but you can take steps that may prevent future serious repercussions. After your child’s injuries, you should:
Document whatever you can. If you see your child’s accident and know what led to it, take photos that will show exactly what contributed to the accident. Document your child’s injuries. Keep track of all of your child’s medical bills. The more documentation you have, the easier you can prove who caused your child’s injuries. Documentation may prove particularly important if you wait until your child reaches adulthood to file a Bronx child injury claim, since it may prove incredibly difficult to find remaining evidence after all that time.
Report the accident. If your child suffered injuries at school or on a school bus, you should report the incident to the school district as soon as possible. If your child suffered injuries in a premises liability accident, from injuries at a hotel to injuries on a playground, you should notify the owner of that property as soon as possible.
Make sure your child receives appropriate medical care. Any time your child has a serious accident, even if you believe that they did not suffer serious injuries, take them in to have a thorough medical evaluation. Often, children may not want to tell you the full extent of their symptoms, especially if they feel that they contributed to the accident in any way. You may also want to ensure that your child did not suffer an injury that they fail to notice or mention to you. Seeking medical attention can also provide vital evidence of exactly when your child’s injuries took place.
Contact an experienced child injury attorney. Get in touch with an attorney who understands child injury law and who will provide you with a full assessment of your rights and your child’s rights following any kind of serious injury.
Get in touch with your medical insurance provider. Make sure you have a strong understanding of your medical insurance policy, what it will cover, and how the circumstances that led to your child’s injuries may change the compensation your medical insurance offers.
You may want to talk to your medical insurance provider about:
- Your copays and deductibles
- How much coverage you have for physical therapy
- What coverage your child has for in-home care if needed
- What coverage you have for durable medical equipment
If you know your child will need long-term care as a result of their injuries, make sure you know how your insurance may impact your choices and how you can seek assistance.
Cost should not stop you from pursuing maximum compensation for your child’s accident and resulting injuries. Unfortunately, for some families, the cost can prove prohibitive, especially in the aftermath of a serious accident.
Hiring an attorney often proves more affordable than you may think.
Many child injury attorneys will start with a free consultation to better understand the factors that contributed to your child’s accident and the compensation that should result. In many cases, if the attorney decides to take your case, they will do it on a contingent fee basis; instead of paying upfront for your legal services, you will simply pay a percentage of the compensation they help you recover for your Bronx child injury.
Contact the experienced child injury lawyers at Jacoby & Meyers LLP, today to discuss the details of your child’s accident and to determine your eligibility to pursue compensation.
Do You Need a Bronx Child Injury Attorney? Call Jacoby & Meyers LLP
Child Injury Lawyer, Andrew Finkelstein
If your child suffered serious injuries due to the negligence of another party, a child injury attorney can help you better understand your legal right to file a claim and pursue compensation to cover the full cost of your child’s injuries. Contact Jacoby & Meyers LLP, call us at (718) 294-0813, or begin a webchat with one of our live representatives about the specific circumstances of your child’s accident. We’ll provide you with a free case evaluation and let you know if we can help you.
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“We had the most amazing trial attorney at Jacoby and Meyers…. My sister was hit by a car in a parking lot and was really hurt. Sharon fought so hard in court for her. Sharon was really well liked by the people in the Court and did so much for my sister on her case…. It is a great firm and I highly recommend it to anyone with an injury case.”
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