personal Injury of a child

[clathrop]

What is the name of your state? Wisconsin

We are coming to the end of our statue of limitations with a case regarding my daughter. 3 years ago when my daughter and I were entering a store walking through a turn style, my daughter got injuried that resulted in her losing one of her front baby teeth 3 years prematurely. After working with a local lawyer and orthodontist we are finding out there is no definate findings for the need of orthodonitic surgery related to the incident. We are now in the question of having our daughter evaluated by a psychologist to deteremine if she has suffered emotional damage due to the incident. We have tryed to contact other psychologist to evalute our daughter but none wanted to get involed with a lawsuit in progress. We contacted our lawyer and was refered to a psychologist that is willing to see our daughter at the cost to us $1500 for test to determine if damage has resulted emotionally. To us our daughter seems happy. She does have feelings regarding the injury itself and fears but over a 3 year span it is hard to determine if this is something normal for her age or not.

Is this something that would be worth putting my daughter through to get an evaluation to proceed with the case against the store for damages? Would there be a different service that would be available that could do an evaluation at a lesser cost but yet support our case? Would my daughter necessarily have to see a psychologist or can it be a therapist of some kind?
Talking to the lawyer pending the evaluation of our daughter from the psychologist, he states that our case may only be worth $3000 in settlement and would this even all be worht the effort and time? Should this have been a case that should have been handled better in small claims court rather than trial?
Thanks for any advice!

[stephenk]

"3 years ago when my daughter and I were entering a store walking through a turn style, my daughter got injuried that resulted in her losing one of her front baby teeth 3 years prematurely."

Who was turning the turnstyle that hit her in the mouth?

[clathrop]

my daughter was turning the turn style with her hand because it was right at mouth hieght to her when she proceeded to turn it instead of the spring tension moving the turn style forward it recoiled back to her face and knocked the tooth out right out (bloody mess)

[ceara19]

Originally Posted by clathrop

my daughter was turning the turn style with her hand because it was right at mouth hieght to her when she proceeded to turn it instead of the spring tension moving the turn style forward it recoiled back to her face and knocked the tooth out right out (bloody mess)

As her parent, why were you allowing her to play with this dangerous apparatus?

[teflon_jones]

So you want to sue the store because you failed to take adequate precautions with a small child?

[ecmst12]

If you can't tell whether your daughter is suffering psychological "damage", then she is most likely fine. Having some fear or other feelings about the injury itself is totally normal; if she screams and hides every time she sees a turnstyle, that is probably a little more then normal reaction, but most likely she is over it. Abnormal would be recurring nightmares about the incident, that kind of thing. But children are very resilient and childhood injuries, from one source or another, are a normal part of growing up. It sounds to me like either you or your lawyer is just looking for ways to get money out of the store, when in fact you don't even have a very strong case that it was primarily the store's negligence that caused the accident. If the store paid for the medical/dental bills associated with the injury, you should be satisfied at that. If your daughter has no permanent physical damages (sounds like her adult tooth will grow in just fine in time), then there's nothing for her to be compensated for.

[Zigner]

What makes you think the statute of limitations is going to run out for your daughter?

[racer72]

We're sorry, you do not win the Deep Pockets Lottery, thank you for playing, please play again.

[clathrop]

Thank you for the advice and giving me a honest reply before I went and took my daughter to the pshychologist and forked out 1500 dollars . I didnt think that I was going to get this bashed up by just asking for some legal advice in here . Maybe I came to the wrong forum to ask for a second opionion .oh well . I have a few more questions that I would like to ask in here ( who knows maybe I 'll start a lynch mob with this crowd ) . At the time of the incident after returning from the hospitol I went and confronted the store manager and told him what had happened and all he really said to us was he has seen the same thing happen to many kids but most don't loose teeth over it . Myquestion is if this has happen many times and the store knows about it is there anything that can be done to have it removed . Another thing that I am curious about is there was a video tape of the incedent when my lawyer asked to see the tape he was told he could view the tape only if he traveled form wisconsin to there home office in ohio to see the section of the security tape . Is there a reason why they would make this video tape so hard to obtain . Or is this just a standard procedure that anyone in there shoes would do in this situation .

I know a lot of you make me out to be a gold digger but my concern and spitefulness is more towards haveing the turnstyles removed for safety reasons and how the store treated us after the incedent . If my child was doing something wrong then why wouldn't they let us view the tape so my lawyer could tell me it wasn't worth it. My lawyer tried to get a private eye to get photos of this turnstyle and the area the incedent happen and the store refused us to take any pictures . Is this the way that things go these days ???

[Silverplum]

All this nonsense over losing a baby tooth?

Good grief.

[ecmst12]

If the store was aware that it was a hazard and did nothing about it, that does make your case stronger, but can you prove it? The comment that the store manager made to you doesn't mean anything unless he's willing to repeat it in court. Part of the reason McDonald's lost the coffee lawsuit was because there was proof that they were aware that the coffee was being served at a dangerous temperature but they had refused to lower it to a safe level.

But it still won't get you a big settlement since there were no significant permanent damages resulting from the injury.