QUESTION
Shower Door Shattered all over toddler at Hotel, what is my recourse?
Asked on Jun 30th, 2019 on Personal Injury - California
More details to this question:
Toddler was simply sliding the door (it was a barn style door in a bathroom) in Hawaii. Door shattered and she received multiple cuts and a chunk of glass hit her on the head. She appears to have avoided serious injury, but are taking her to our pediatrician this week (just got back) to check everything out. EMTs cleaned the wounds and told us to watch out of concussion. Not only did this ruin our vacation, but I am very concerned that they are just going to put the same type of door and someone else is going to get hurt. Additional information, although they said "this was an isolated incident" the night manager did mention to my mother that it had happened one before when kids were "playing around". Also, they tried to move us to another room but I insisted they remove the door, when they tried to remove the door it also shattered. So I think it's likely that they know that these doors are defective. I'm interested in what my recourse is here?
1 ANSWER
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This sounds like a very scary situation. However, it is a more common occurrence than you might think. Homeowners across the country have reported "exploding" shower doors made by various manufacturers. There is an interesting article about this phenomenon here.
There does not appear to be a specific, known cause for glass doors suddenly shattering, so liability may be difficult to establish. Most injuries from these events are relatively minor, and it sounds like that was the case with your daughter, thankfully. If she has medical bills, the facility where this occurred likely has medical payments ("med-pay") coverage that would reimburse you for medical costs up to a certain dollar amount regardless of whether the facility is at fault or not. You should open a premises liability claim with the facility/their insurance and ask what med pay coverage is available.
Answered on Jul 04th, 2019 at 7:43 AM