What To Do If Someone’s Negligence Caused Your Child’s Burn Injury?

Small children have not learned about the dangers posed by electricity. A day care facility should take steps to keep its toddlers away from any electrical outlet or lighting fixture. A toy maker should make certain that battery-powered toys are safe.

What might cause a burn?

• Exposure to an especially hot liquid
• Too much time in the sun, or failure to use a protective lotion
• Getting exposed to harsh household chemicals
• Coming in contact with an electrical current

Legal rights of a child that has received a burn

• Obtain photographs of the injury
• Take notes, or have parents or a caregiver take notes, explaining what took place in the moments before the child got burned
• Explain to a doctor what happened (If notes are available, that information should guide a discussion with a physician.)
• Hold onto any defective product that caused a burn
• Hold onto the packaging for such a product, and also keep any inserts in the packaged product.

Actions to be taken by child’s parents

You will need to document all the financial losses caused by the burn injury
Keep all medical bills. Keep all stubs received, after paying for parking at a doctor’s office, or at a hospital or other medical facility. Additionally, don’t forget to document problems experienced by child: Those could include emotional disturbances and missed activities.

Get doctor’s report, if the child experienced a slow-down in growth or development. Did the burn delay the child’s ability to learn to crawl or to walk? Did it affect the child’s appetite?

Sometimes a small child that has suffered a burn injury to an arm or leg could need some form or rehabilitation. Did the parents need to help with the rehabilitation? Did they need to take time off from work, in order to perform that service?

Those are the sorts of questions that the parents could expect to get from an Injury Lawyer in Waterloo, if they chose to hire one.

Why parents should think seriously about hiring a lawyer?

The type of damages for which the parents can be compensated depends on the reason for the burn. Following a burn incident at day care center, the parents could seek compensation for an economic loss.

On the other hand, if a defective product burned the child, then the victim could not seek compensation for an economic loss. Yet, the law does allow the victim to seek damages from anyone in the supply chain, the chain of workers that took part in the creation and distribution of the defective item.

Lawyers that specialize in personal injury law have a clearer understanding of what damages could be sought by a child’s mother and father, or by a guardian. So, legal representation helps clients/parents to win a fair compensation package.