Fort Lauderdale child injury lawyer

Published on: January 31, 2015

Ruiz v. Victory Props. – Child Injury Lawsuit to Proceed

The law treats children differently in many respects.

In criminal courts, for example, juvenile courts aim for rehabilitation rather than punishment.

In civil court, children are often granted exceptions in terms of their understanding of danger and liability. One example of this is seen in the doctrine of attractive nuisance. The principle holds it is the property owner’s responsibility to protect children from on-site hazards that may be present and which might be attractive to children and yet inherently dangerous. The theory holds children are naturally curious and not yet fully developed enough to recognize certain dangers and protect themselves in the same way we might expect adults to do.

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Published on: December 20, 2014

Report: Toy Injuries Among Children Higher Than Ever

By Dean Freeman

As we near the greatest gift-giving season of the year, we do recognize toys can be of great benefit to children, helping them to develop, learn and explore. However, they are also a source of serious injury.

A new report published in the journal Clinical Pediatrics indicates the number of toy-related injuries among children has risen sharply in the last two decades. Today, a child is rushed to an emergency room every 3 minutes for treatment of a toy-related injury.

In fact, researchers for the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital found more than 3.2 million children were treated in U.S. emergency rooms for toy-related injuries from 1990 through 2011. More than half of these instances involved children under the age of 5.

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Published on: November 12, 2014

Haynes v. Middletown – School Bullying Lawsuits on the Rise

By Dean Freeman

There was a time when bullying – even severe bullying – was scene as strictly within the purview of schools and parents and those youth involved. Increasingly, however, as awareness has risen and cyberbullying makes harassment almost inescapable, these matters are being handled by the courts.

In Florida, a Coral Springs mother filed a lawsuit against the local school district in 2011 after she said bullying led her 13-year-old daughter to the brink of suicide. In 2012, parents of a Palm Beach County middle school student filed a civil lawsuit against the local district for incessant bullying of their 14-year-old son suffered repeated thefts, harassment and stalking by the son of the principal, who did nothing to address the problem. Earlier this year, parents of a 12-year-old Orlando-area girl who killed herself after being bullied for months on social media (being told to “drink bleach and die” and “go kill yourself”) sued the school district for failing to stop the harassment.

But it’s not just Florida. Recently, a bullying lawsuit made it all the way to the state supreme court in Connecticut, where justices ruled plaintiffs in Hayes v. City of Middletown were entitled to a new trial, after finding numerous errors by both the trial and appellate courts.

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