Child injured at park, in hosp for 4 mos-anything further we can do?

[waffle1]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? CA

In Sept of 03 my family and I were asked to have a booth at a festival in a park in Monterey. While we were setting up the booth in the park, our children were playing near the waters edge nearby in an area where there were paths, rocks to sit on, etc. We heard a scream, and ran to find that a large boulder had come off of it's placement and fallen on the children. My youngest, then 3 (oldest had been watching her, he was 11), had suffered a crushed leg/foot and hand that left her permanently disabled.

We obtained a lawyer and sued the city and state. We were told right out that it would be a diificult case, if not impossible, because there was a statute (?) that said that as long as the person who signed off on the blue-prints for the park that the accident occurred in had the education to do so, the city and state could not be held liable. During the court battles, the city changed the park so that all of the boulders were cemented in and put up a fence.

We lost the case, appealed and lost that. Occasionally, like today, I look back and wonder if there wasn't more we could have done. It is nearly impossible to get her covered by insurance and she needs more surgeries. She requires special shoes and has difficulty writing (her hand was crushed as well). She has chronic pain. Her foot and hand are deformed.

This is my question: Initially, my daughter was seen at a local hospital prior to be transferred to stanford hospital (I made all of the arrangements and demanded that she be transferred). For nearly two days, she was wrapped in a cast that did not allow for the blood to flow and the local hospital was going to amputate. It was my beleif then, and is now that had the hospital admitted that they could not treat and transferred her immediately, her outcome would have been better. As it was, so much debridement had to be done that she lost most of her foot. The lawyers told me to concentrate on the suit against the city/state because medical lawsuits were just too difficult to prove. Is it too late to do anything? Would it even be worth it? I just feel like she should have gotten some sort of compensation for all she went through and I don't want to keep wondering if there is more we could have done.

Please feel free to ask any questions you may have. I will try to answer them to the best of my ability. I do have access to the appeals judgement as it is available online. For the rest, I must go by memory because none of the paperwork from the lawsuit was ever given to us.

I just want to know that we did everything that we could, and if possible, make it so that she can have the future surgeries that she needs. Currently, we cannot get her covered and have no idea how we are going to make them happen.

[Zigner]

I am sorry for your child.
However, this really sounds like a case of failure to properly supervise your child. That is why you didn't prevail in court.

[j991]

Sorry to hear about your ordeal. Unfortunetly there is not anything that can be done against the hospital. The medical malpractice statutue of limitations is 3 (sometimes 5 years) years from the facts of your case. The malpractice clock starts to toll when the malpractice was or should have been discovered. You said yourself that you transferred your child because you didn't think that she was getting the proper treatment. The only tactic that I can think of in your situation would be to file a legal malpractice case based on the advise from your previous lawyer that a medical case would not be worth forwarding. However, it is a very long shot, because that is a legal opinion rather than legal fact You would need to show that the lawyer overlooked facts that would be obvious to another that you had a case agaisnt the medical field. Hope for the best. Good luck.

[Zigner]

Originally Posted by j991

Sorry to hear about your ordeal. Unfortunetly there is not anything that can be done against the hospital. The medical malpractice statutue of limitations is 3 (sometimes 5 years) years from the facts of your case. The malpractice clock starts to toll when the malpractice was or should have been discovered. You said yourself that you transferred your child because you didn't think that she was getting the proper treatment. The only tactic that I can think of in your situation would be to file a legal malpractice case based on the advise from your previous lawyer that a medical case would not be worth forwarding. However, it is a very long shot, because that is a legal opinion rather than legal fact You would need to show that the lawyer overlooked facts that would be obvious to another that you had a case agaisnt the medical field. Hope for the best. Good luck.

j991 - the SOL is tolled until the child turns 18

[waffle1]

Originally Posted by Zigner

I am sorry for your child.
However, this really sounds like a case of failure to properly supervise your child. That is why you didn't prevail in court.

Thank you for your sympathy. Actually, it was never brought up in court that we did not properly supervise. I assume because we were only a short distance away ( we could see and hear them) and because there had been recent changes made to the park (by the way, this was a park-park, swings, grass, etc.) and the boulders had been added for asthetic purposes. They were about 300-400 pounds each and had been cemented into the ground to create paths. The one that fell on my daughter had not been cemented due to an oversight and it was considered a freak occurrence that it fell at all, considering it's weight.

[ecmst12]

Lack of supervision had nothing to do with it. This sounds to me like an act of god. The park can't be held responsible for acts of nature like falling rocks, and even though they have taken steps to prevent a similar accident from happening again, that does not make them liable. A court ruled twice they were not, there is nothing more to be done.

As far as malpractice, when it comes to minors, in most states the SOL does not even start to run until the minor's 18th birthday. You are free to take her records to an attorney for an opinion, but it does not sound to me like anything overtly negligent occurred. It is more likely that her injuries were simply very serious, and there was only so much to be done to fix them. It's unfortunate, but sometimes bad things do happen and there is no one to blame for them.

[TheGeekess]

This is about one of the children that your ex took out of state?
[url]http://forum.freeadvice.com/child-custody-visitation-37/parent-moved-children-out-state-without-contact-439037.html[/url]

[waffle1]

Yes, why? I saw that there were other forums and I had been mulling over this. Was I only supposed to post to one forum at a time? I apologize if that is so.

[dasaniaddict]

I am so sorry that this happened to your daughter. I had a similar crush injuries to my left leg and hand, so I am missing parts of both. They thought they were going to have to amputate my foot at one point as well. Poor baby! Can she not get state insurance to cover the costs of surgery that she needs if your insurance won't cover it? I just assumed because she is a child, that there is something in place for a situation such as yours.

I can't even imagine how horrible it must be to watch your child suffer so. But on the bright side, the pain gets better over time, and I bet she doesn't remember what happened.

Good luck with your case.