QUESTION
My child fell off the monkey bars at school resulting in 3 fractures, should we sue?
Asked on Oct 29th, 2014 on Personal Injury - Virginia
More details to this question:
My child ell off the 8' monkey bars at his school (7' is considered safe). He broke his humerus in 2 places and ulna in 1 place. The school called and would not tell us what happened, just to come to the school. They did not call 911, we had to transport in car and then he was transferred to a larger hospital for urgent surgery that day resulting in an overnight stay. He had follow up yesterday at which point we were told he may never have full ROM of the R arm again (he is 9 years old) and he has to go through another cast and follow up x-rays for a year. We have missed work due to this, he has missed school. He is in constant pain.
1 ANSWER
1 Award
I see two big problems with maintaining a claim against the school. First is that, assuming this is a public school, they have sovereign immunity as a governmental agency, which means you can only sue them for gross negligence. Second, I don't even see how you prove simple negligence. Unless they did something that caused your child to be injured, they cannot be liable. Accidents happen and it's unfortunate that this happened to your son, but I don't see that you have a claim against the school. Of course, you may choose to seek a second opinion.
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Answered on Oct 29th, 2014 at 9:18 PM