Injuries to Minors and Children
In Washington, people under the age of 18 years of age are considered minors and, therefore, cannot file a lawsuit without the involvement of a parent or a legal guardian. When a minor child is injured as a result of the negligence of another, the law allows the minor child to recover for his or her injuries. A severe accident in the young life of a child can lead to a lifetime of expensive medical costs, pain and suffering, and future hardships for the child and the parents. The lawyers at Premier Law Group understand the difficulties your family may be going through and we are here to help.
Premier Law Group’s attorneys have years of experience successfully representing people who have been involved in various accidents due to someone else’s negligence. We have successfully recovered millions and millions of dollars for our past clients, and we will do what we can to help you recover the maximum possible compensation.
If you have a child or minor who was injured due to the negligence of another, Premier Law Group is here to help no matter where you are in the State of Washington. We routinely make home and hospital visits. We truly go the extra mile for our clients, and we believe our experience, past results, and personal attention make us different from most other Washington personal injury attorneys.
Call us today for a free consultation and case evaluation. If we handle your case, you pay absolutely no legal fees unless we win. Premier Law Group is here to make a difference in your life.
IF YOUR LOVED ONE WAS INJURED IN AN ACCIDENT
If your under-aged child is injured in an accident, you must keep two very important goals in mind:
1. You want to increase the chances of you child’s complete recovery from their injury by getting the best medical care possible.
2. You want to recover the most money possible to pay for all your medical care, loss of income, and pain and suffering.
To achieve both of these goals, you have certain duties. There are certain steps that you should take. Your doctor and lawyer can only achieve the best results with your cooperation. The best doctor and the best lawyer in the world will not achieve the maximum result possible unless you take the following steps. So pay very close attention and read this until you have mastered it.
Report your child’s complaints thoroughly
Every time you see a doctor, be as thorough as it is possible for you to be. One of the challenges of childhood injuries is the inability of very young children to voice their complaints. The ability to communicate can be severely limited.
If you are the loved one of someone who has been injured, you are in a position to be his or her advocate. Begin a journal immediately. Record every detail no matter how insignificant it may seem. In many cases, the victim of childhood injury needs all their energy to deal with the challenges of recovery.
Preserve all the evidence
Now is not the time for vanity. Make sure to get photos of wounds, lacerations, bruises, and any other physical evidence that proves your loved one was injured. Also, make sure to get photographs of the accident scene immediately. The scene will be cleaned up and most of the evidence will be lost if you don’t act promptly.
Witnesses
When a child is injured, independent witnesses are essential for proving that they weren’t at fault for the accident. Secure adult witnesses if possible. This is important because juries are often reticent to give consideration to the testimony of minors, especially if they are very young.
Get the names, addresses, and phone numbers of anybody who witnessed the accident, even if the other person admits at the time that the accident was their fault. Often, the person who caused an accident will change their story later. Having the ability to prove through independent witnesses that an accident happened the way you claim it did can be the difference between winning and losing.
Keep a journal
We have mentioned this already, but we want to emphasize this again. Between the day of the accident and the time that the minor or child fully recovers or the case goes to trial, many important details will be forgotten unless you write them down. Even if your loved one is old enough to keep a journal, keep a journal from your perspective.
What do you want to record in the journal? Write your daily experiences, restrictions, and pain in it. Share this information with us so that we may better understand the full extent of your child’s harm. That will enable us to convey it more effectively to the jury or whoever we are settling the case with.
Continue treatment
If you stop going to the doctor for any reason, you make it easy for the jury to assume the child is feeling fine and didn’t need any treatment. It will also take longer for your child to recover from theirinjury. Your reasons may seem logical—not having the money, not having a car, not having time, having to go to school, having to take care of the kids, etc. Unfortunately, this logic won’t improve your child’s health, and it will destroy your case. Consistent treatment proves the ongoing nature of any pain and suffering.
If a certain type of treatment is not helping you child, talk to your doctor or to us about other methods of treatment. Do not sit and wait for your doctor to refer you out to another specialist. It is quite common for a doctor to have difficulty admitting that his treatment plan isn’t working for you. With many childhood injuries, many treatment plans may have to be tried before the right one for the specific injury is found.
As long as symptoms still exist, visit the doctor and any other medical providers recommended by the doctor consistently. If no treatment has proven helpful, only show up once a month and tell your doctor about your child’s complaints. Ultimately, the main proof of injury will be the visits to the doctor’s office.
See the right doctor
There are many different issues that can arise from childhood injuries. You need to go to the right doctor for the type of injury. Use the following guide as a general reference, but we encourage you to visit a physician to determine which specialists are the best for your child’s actual injuries.
- Neurologist – Severe consistent headaches, dizziness and vertigo, numbness, paralysis, loss of motion and/or feeling, loss of memory, loss of consciousness and/or change in cognitive functioning may require a neurologist’s analysis or testing.
- Orthopedist – Spinal injuries, severe and continuous neck and/or back pain, pain and discomfort in shoulder, knees, hands and feet as well as all broken bones or other spinal and bone related injuries usually require visiting an orthopedist.
- Psychologist / Psychiatrist – Anxiety, depression, withdrawal, fear, phobia, and other behavioral and mood related symptoms must be examined by a Psychologist or a Psychiatrist.
- Physical Therapist / Chiropractor – While the abovementioned doctors will treat patients by medication or surgery, most everyone who has muscle, tendon, ligament and spinal injury will benefit from a course of physical therapy and chiropractic treatment.
- Obviously there are many other specialists that have not been listed such as Opthalmologists, Otolayrngologists, Podiatrists, etc.
Of course, we do not want you to have your child undergo any unnecessary treatment or examinations. This will undermine the legitimacy of your injury claim as well as create unnecessary medical bills which may not be compensable.
Talk to an attorney
If you follow these steps, you provide us with all the tools necessary to obtain the absolute maximum recovery possible. At Premier Law Group, we believe you deserve the best outcome. Our attorneys fight aggressively for your rights. If you think that you have a claim, call us today.
