Utah Children’s Injury Attorney Jake Gunter helps parents get the medical bills paid and compensation for their children injuries.
Here are Common Types Children’s Injuries Where a Utah Children’s Injury Attorney Can Help:
Here are Common Types Children’s Injuries Where a Utah Children’s Injury Attorney Can Help:Broken bones and fractures. Children’s growth plate injuries. Articulating joint injuries that heal slowly or never heal at all to full capacity.
Brain injuries. Concussions. Pediatric mild traumatic head injuries.
Paralysis. Quadriplegia, paraplegia requiring life long care.
Strain-Strain Injuries. Back, neck and spinal column injuries
Common Children Injury Cases:
Sports coaches and/or players.
Property owners. Attractive child nuisances. Unattended construction sites. Inappropriately guarded and barricade dangerous conditions on the land. Pools, pits, irrigation ponds, etc.
School officials. Schools are to keep children safe. School officials must act with reasonable care when charged with your children’s safety.
Health care professionals. Medical malpractice. Child birth injuries.
Toy manufacturers. Products liability. Manufacturing liability regarding toys, children’s products when unsafely produced.
Pet owners. Dog attacks. Animal attacks, horses, and pets.
Car accidents. Children passengers who are injured in a car accident have all the same rights to compensation for their Utah injuries as adults do. Children are commonly hurt in car accidents and their injuries are undertreated.
Motorcycle passenger claims. Children are often hurt while riding on the back of motorcycles or scooters incurring significant medical bills. ATV accidents and side-by-sides also can cause passenger injuries to children.
Playground equipment manufacturers. Unsafe equipment. Negligent maintenance and monitoring of playground equipping hurting people.
Other parents/people. Children are sexually assaulted and an attorney can intervene as the victim advocate and requests criminal restitution and/or file a civil lawsuit against the perpetrators.
Birth injuries stemming from labor and delivery errors.
Swimming pool accidents. Pools, both residential or commercial have specific safety rules that must be followed to avoid people getting hurt.
Child Pedestrian Accidents. Children hit in cross walks, or hit by cars on bicycles are common Utah child injuries.
Death. All deaths involving children should be looked at very carefully and you should consult an attorney to determine your rights. Many states have mandatory medical review boards for all children’s deaths.
Tragic, Catastrophic Accidents. Any time a child is hurt or killed in a catastrophic accident you should consult a Utah personal injury attorney to determine your rights.
Types of Damages for Utah Child Injury Cases:
Children are entitled to the same types of damages as injured adults are. A unique aspect of handling children’s injury cases is the youthfulness of the child and their long lives ahead of them in dealing with this injury.
Medical bills. Payment of present and future medical expenses
General damages. Compensation for pain and suffering.
Lost wages, employment. Payment for loss of future wages due to disability
Funeral costs. Payment of funeral expenses in the case of a wrongful death.
Future injury expenses. Damages in children’s injury cases must be projected out over the life of the child. Life expectancy tables or social security disability guidelines can be used.
Emotional harm. Compensation for mental trauma and anguish.
Utah Minor Settlements. How Does That Work?
Unless the amount of the minor settlement is under $15,000 a formal court guardianship and conservatorship must be set up.
Further, a court must approve any minor settlement before it can happen.
Suing Perpetrators for Sexual Assault.
Children who are sexually attacked can sue their perpetrators in civil court. Common examples are children suing adults who were also convicted criminally. You can either wait until the criminal conviction results or concurrently sue the sexual assault perpetrator in civil court.
Negligent institutions who care for children or interact with children owe a duty to monitor their employees and conduct background checks to screen against child perpetrators. When these business act negligently and hurt children, they are liable for their actions.
Children Passenger Claims in Car Accident Case. Who does the child make a claim against?
Kids getting hurt in car accidents happens all the time and they are undertreated medically for it.
Here are common examples of how children can receive compensation for their injuries sustained in car accidents. Including against their own parents:
Example 1. Kids in back. Mom is rear-ended on I-15 near Provo. In this example mother has a claim against the person who rear-ended mom, but each of the children also have a claim. Mother and each kid has a minimum of $3,000 in personal injury protection medical care to get better with. Utah’s PIP statute applies to each person in the car. The children and mother would make a claim against the person who rear-ended them.
Example 2. Kids in back. Father rolls car over in drunk stupidness. Dad is drunk and rolls his car over, killing one of his kids and severely hurting his other children. The hurt child will have a claim against father and the car insurance he had. The deceased child’s heirs will have a claim against the insurance policy that dad had on the car.
Example 3. Kids in back. Father is involved in intersection car accident. Father is proceeding straight through the intersection and a car turns left in front of father, failing to yield the right of way. A collision occurs injuring father and kids.
Father would have an insurance claim against the person making a left hand turn for failing to yield.
The children would have an insurance claim against the person making the left hand turn and possible against father. Against the left hand turner, the children’s claim would be for negligence and failing to yield to father as he proceeded straight through the intersection.
The children could have an additional claim against their own father for any possible negligence father may have had in not paying enough attention, failing to be alert, failure to apply his breaks, or playing with his phone while entering an intersection. Although father’s fault may not be much, the children should have independent counsel helping them collect compensation for their injuries as needed from both father’s insurance and left hand turner’s insurance company.
The Divorced Utah Parents. Stacking Underinsured Policies for Children Injured in Car Accidents.
When children are injured as passengers in Utah there can be situations where the child will need to access underinsured policies. Underinsured policies occur when the person that caused the accident didn’t have enough insurance to pay for all the injuries and you have to tap into your own underinsured motorist coverage. Called “UIM.”
Each case is different, but when a child resides at both parents home and they are divorced, or separated, sometimes each parent’s underinsured policy can be stacked. Meaning the child can access each parent’s undersinsured motorist coverage policies, even though that car may have not been involved in the Utah car accident was sitting in the drive at the time of the collision.