Being Sued for Wrongful Death

[Lorisha]

What is the name of your state?What is the name of your state? Oklahoma

The summary...

2 months ago a 2 year old drowned in our swimming pool. The child's mother left him with his grandfather who lives across a busy street from us. We were not home and upon returning home we found EMT's trying to save the boys life in our front yard. The boy had left his house and crossed the busy street went through an adjacent neighbors unlocked gate then through a "whole" in the fence between that neighbors yard and ours. He then climbed into our pool where he was not found until 15 minutes after the grandfather noticed the child was missing. (He was running through the neighborhood knocking on doors asking if anyone had seen his grandson)

I found out later that night that the child had done the same thing earlier that day and had found our pool and asked his mother if he could go swimming she told him no..but NEVER informed us that he had been back there.

The child was constantly roaming the neighborhood because the mother or grandfather would "lose sight of him" yet they never done anything to prevent his roaming ,such as child proof locks on their doors to prevent him from getting out of the house on his own.

Being Sued...

The mother has now decided to sue us for her sons wrongful death. By city statutes there was a fence and a "locked gate" around our pool. The gate was not locked at this time because we had been working in our backyard. There was a hauling trailer full of tree limbs backed up to the open gate so the child could not get in through there. As said earlier he went through another neighbors gate and fence.

We do not have homeowners insurance had an appraisal done 2 weeks before accident and first payment was not made yet. The deed to the home is in my fiance's brothers name so she is suing him on top of us. We have a lawyer but do not meet with her until tomorrow morning and honestly I am scared to death!!


My Questions...

We were told that she could end up with everything we own. We have 4 children and were not "rich" but we do well. Can she truely end up with everything we own??

Does she have a good case against us?

Is their anything we can counter sue her for? (in hopes of maybe scaring her off from sueing us we don't want any money we just want this all to go away)

Can anyone point me to a site that I can do a research on oklahoma law? Google hasn't helped much mainly giving me links to lawyers to contact.



(obviously there is more background to this story but I would be here all day trying to type it all out)

Lorisha:

By city statutes there was a fence and a "locked gate" around our pool. The gate was not locked at this time because we had been working in our backyard. There was a hauling trailer full of tree limbs backed up to the open gate so the child could not get in through there. As said earlier he went through another neighbors gate and fence.

The gate should have not been left unlocked. The trailer should have been moved out of the way and the gate LOCKED, but hindsight is 20/20.

How do you know for sure that the child....

went through an adjacent neighbors unlocked gate then through a "whole" in the fence between that neighbors yard and ours.

Two-year-old children are very small. The child could have easily crawled under the trailer that was parked in the UNLOCKED gait in order to get to the pool. You are not trying to blame your neighbor are you? or are you?

Is their anything we can counter sue her for? (in hopes of maybe scaring her off from sueing us we don't want any money we just want this all to go away)

Moral answer: Don't sue her "to scare her". Isn't she going through enough right now. She just lost her two-year-old and the Holiday's are coming for goodness sake.

It was a misfortune that this happened, and you would not wish this on your worst enemy, but this is not going to GO AWAY as much as you would love nothing more.

You are looking someone to tell you that "you're in the clear". I don't think you are going to find that here, but maybe someone else will read and respond to this thread once I throw it back to the top.

[Lorisha]

We know that the child went through the neighbors gate because that is how he got into our backyard the first time the mother wasn't watching him. Anther reason we know how he got in is because of the neighbors on the other side of us who were in there own backyard having a cook out who had a clear view of the gate area where the trailer was parked never saw the child come through there the boys shirt was also found on the other side of the fence in the neighbors yard who's gate he went through.

I am not blaming my neighbor as she was not home but I do blame the grandfather who should of been watching the 2 year old in the first place. No 2 year old should be left unsurpervised long enough to cross a busy street and go through one yard to get to another yard and have time to undress and climb into a swimming pool.

She may be going through alot but suing us for "everything we own" isn't going to help her grief. It isn't going to bring her son back. I know we are not in the clear on this the gate should of been locked yes and we should have to pay the city fine of $500 for our negligence with the unlocked gate but I don't think we should face the stress of losing everything just because they CHOSE to not keep an eye on a child that they KNEW roamed the neighborhood. Are they not at fault too??

She may be going through alot but suing us for "everything we own" isn't going to help her grief. It isn't going to bring her son back.

How can you say that she MAY be going through a lot, BUT**************.blah,, blah, blah!!!

I'm to sick to respond further. Maybe someone else wants on this forum wants to help you. NOT ME!!

[dogbitevic]

They may have CHOSE to not keep better watch over the 2 year old, but you also CHOSE not to have homeowners insurance.
I have an in-ground pool & I worry constantly about kids getting in there wothout permission or supervision. We have a self-locking gate, 2 alarms and no holes in the surrounding fence. I still lose sleep at nite...even in the off-season when it's covered. We have insurance, but it might not be enough if there was ever an accidental death...God forbid. We will probably increase our coverage for next summer when we re-open it.
Even if we do everything right, if a kid jumped our fence & went pool hopping with friends and drowned I think we could still be sued. We live in America...that's just the way it is. It sucks but what that mother is going through is devastating.