A Summer Toy Injured My Child: Now What?
Summertime is when you and your children like to kick back, relax, and have some fun. Some of your kids’ favorite activities include playing with their summer toys. Perhaps they like to float on a pool toy, squirt their friends with water guns, or go on the Slip ‘N Slide. While all of these toys are enjoyable – and usually safe – sometimes, they can cause accidents and injuries. If a summer toy injured your child, you may be asking yourself: now what? With the right product liability lawyer on your side, you can get the compensation you, and your child, deserve.
Riverside, California personal injury lawyers Heiting & Irwin have over four decades of experience assisting clients with personal injury. We have retrieved more than $500 million for our clients, and we’ll fight for the settlement that’s rightfully yours.
What Does Product Liability Mean?
Product liability law is a part of the law that outlines who is responsible for dangerous or defective products that injury people. Products must meet ordinary customer expectations, and when they do not, a customer could bring forth legal action against the responsible party, or parties.
It’s not always clear who is responsible for a product liability injury. The responsible parties could include:
- The manufacturer of the product (the summer toy)
- The manufacturer for the component parts
- The company that installs or assembles the product
- The wholesaler
- The retail store that sold you the product
Here are some examples to make it clearer. Let’s say your child got injured because their water gun trigger broke and hurt their finger. The manufacturer of the water gun, or perhaps the manufacturer of the component parts, might have been negligent. Or, maybe your child got injured because you put together the water gun according to the instructions, but the instructions were wrong. Whoever produced those instructions may be responsible.
You’ll need to get in touch with a product liability attorney to determine who could be at fault and who you’ll need to sue. There could be more than one responsible party depending on the circumstances surrounding your case.
Before purchasing a product for your child, it’s helpful to know about the most dangerous summer toys out there. They, historically, include all-terrain vehicles (ATVs), lawn darts, slingshots, and water slides. However, just because a product isn’t labeled as being dangerous, doesn’t mean that it couldn’t become dangerous because of a defect.
Injuries That Summer Toys Can Cause
You have to be very careful when choosing summer toys for your child. Always make sure that you do your research on toys just to see if there have been any product recalls or there are horror stories out there about these toys. Look at product reviews when you buy toys and ask fellow parents for safe recommendations. Also, only buy products that are age appropriate. If you have a child under three years old, you should never give them a summer toy for older kids, since there could be a life-threatening choking hazard to them.
Aside from choking, summer toys could cause broken bones, fractures, and scarring. Children could get shot with balls or other objects that end up bruising them or causing blindness by hitting them in the eye. They could slip off of water slides or fall in the pool and suffer from injuries, as well as be at risk of drowning if they aren’t strong swimmers. If a child falls off of an ATV, a bike, or another summer vehicle and isn’t wearing a helmet, they could experience a traumatic brain injury or even suffer paralysis.
Whenever children are using summer toys, especially riskier ones, you, or another parent, should supervise them just in case. Kids can get excited and aggressive with their toys, which could lead to an injury. And if the injury is their fault, then your insurance will have to cover it (if you have that type of coverage). You may even have to pay out of pocket if you don’t have adequate insurance.
What Happens When a Summer Toy Hurts Your Child?
As soon as your child get hurts, take them to the doctor or the hospital for an evaluation. Even if the injury doesn’t seem serious, you’ll want to double-check with the doctor just to make sure. Additionally, there could be some internal injuries you don’t know about. Plus, your child’s injuries could get worse in time. If your child isn’t old enough to communicate with you about the full extent of their injury, it’s especially important to seek out medical attention immediately.
Go right away to give your child the best chance to recover from any injury that was serious enough that it needed medical attention. This will be important, not only if you decide to take legal action later on, but also for your child’s welfare.
Strict Liability vs. Negligence
Typically, a summer toy injury lawsuit will fall under strict liability, which means that as long as your child was using the toy for the intended purposes, then you could potentially sue the responsible party for your child’s injury. If the toy was not being used as intended, then the injury could be your someone else’s fault, and you might not be eligible to receive compensation for your bills under a products liability claim.
Much of the time, when products injure people, it’s because there was some sort of mistake in the manufacturing or marketing process. In some cases, a responsible party could have been negligent, or an obvious disregard for the safety of your child.
Proving Fault
Under products liability, proof will be needed that the summer toy that injured your child was indeed defective. Perhaps your proof will come in the form of a video or pictures you took when the accident and injury occurred, or maybe you’ll simply need to provide the owner’s manual with the faulty instructions. You might also have witness statements from people who saw what happened. Sometimes there will be a history throughout the nation involving injuries and that toy. Having proof is essential, and the more you have, the better.
No matter what, you should call a product liability lawyer for assistance with your case. Even if you think the injury may have been your child’s fault, you should check with a lawyer. They will be able to steer you in the right direction and represent you. Plus, you won’t have to pay any fee unless you win. There’s really no risk to you and your family.
Get in Touch With Heiting & Irwin
If you or your child got injured because of a summer toy, then it’s time to find a product liability lawyer to represent you. Heiting & Irwin are here for you. We have dealt with many personal injury cases and will work hard to get you the settlement that you deserve. Contact us online at HILegalGroup.com or call us at 951-682-6400 to initiate your case now.
