Children’s Injuries

When you entrust others to take care of your child you expect them to safeguard your child from harm. When that does not happen and your child is injured the upheaval and uncertainty it creates is immense. You require experienced legal counsel in these circumstances.

Some of the most common causes of children’s injuries include:

• School, daycare or summer camp incidents
• Defective or poorly maintained playground equipment
• Swimming pool accidents
• Motor vehicle collisions
• Inadequate supervision
• Recreational activities (sports, skiing, rock climbing, etc.)
• Dog bites

Cases involving children are very different from typical injury cases. Some of the unique features include:

• Your child must be represented by a litigation guardian
• Settlement must be approved by a judge
• Your children, depending upon their age, cannot be found contributorily negligent

Litigation Guardian

Every child must be represented by a litigation guardian. This person must act in the child’s best interest and instruct their lawyer. Typically a parent or close relative will act as the litigation guardian.

Settlement Approval

Cases involving children cannot settle without a judge’s approval. This requires the child’s lawyer to deliver written submissions to the court setting out the important facts and reasons behind the proposed settlement as well as documentation from the litigation guardian regarding their views on settlement.

Sometimes with children you do not want to settle a case as quick as possible. The reason for this is that children are always changing and developing. Sometimes you must wait longer to really understand with medical evidence what impact the injury has upon them. For example, you may not be able to appreciate the long-term consequences of serious head injury for a child until they grow closer to adulthood. It may only be that you can see how their skillset is limited as the cognitive demands of school or work increase. Some medical experts will refuse to provide an opinion on your child’s prognosis until they get closer to adulthood.

It is critically important that your lawyer engage the appropriate medical experts early on in your child’s case so that you can understand and appreciate the likely course of their impairments over time. Once you have a grasp of the medical evidence and your child’s long-term prognosis, you are in a position to settle your case.

Children are frequently injured on school trips or during other recreational activities where their parent signed a waiver as part of the permission forms. Many parents believe this means their child cannot sue if they are injured during the activity. This could not be further from the truth.

There is almost no legal authority in Ontario, or Canada for that matter, that prevents a minor from suing after their parent signed a waiver. In fact, there has yet to be a reported case in Ontario where a court concluded that a parent could waive their child’s right to sue when they have been injured. It is therefore critical that parents who signed waives and whose children were hurt during the activity consult with a lawyer before giving up on a lawsuit.