What Should You Do if Your Child Has Been Injured By A Product?

As a parent, there is nothing more horrifying than watching your child become sick or injured. 

Once you have dealt with the primary concern, which is making sure that your child is OK and seeking medical attention for them, if it’s needed, it’s time to start thinking about making sure that something like this doesn’t happen to your child, or indeed, other people’s children.

As a consumer, you do have rights, and it’s important that you exercise them so that manufacturers continue to be vigilant about the safety of the goods that they are producing.

Report Dangerous Products

If your child has been injured as a result of a product, then naturally, the first thing you’ll want to do is ensure that the same thing doesn’t happen to any other children.

The best way to do this is to report the faulty product so that the manufacturer can check their processes and recall it, if necessary. It’s possible that a fault with a product was due to a one-off manufacturing issue, in which case, the manufacturer will probably recall only the affected batch or batches of the product. If the problem is with the design of the product as a whole, then an entire product line may be recalled. 

You should report any faulty or dangerous products directly to the manufacturer as soon as you can, including details of where and when you bought them and any serial or batch numbers that you can find. Give as much detail as possible about the problem and how it caused an injury. If you don’t receive a response within a few weeks, then chase it up.

You can also report dangerous products directly to the government recalls website.

Should You Seek Legal Advice?

If your child has been injured through no fault of their own, then this could mean that a personal injury claim can be made. 

Personal injury claims exist to help you with things like medical expenses, lost earnings that you may have incurred by needing to take time off of work to look after them while they were ill, as well as compensating for emotional distress.

If you think that your case is eligible for a personal injury claim, then it’s a good idea to speak with a personal injury lawyer. Lawyers like https://www.brownandcrouppen.com/ will usually look at your case for free to assess it and let you know if they think that you have a chance of winning. 

Often, they will also offer to take on personal injury cases on a contingency fee basis, which means that they don’t take any payment unless you win your case. They will usually build their fee into your settlement amount, too, so you won’t end up out of pocket.

It’s worth bearing in mind that there is a statute of limitations on personal injury claims, which will vary from state to state and can be as low as one year. The statute of limitations is the amount of time that you have to start to claim proceedings after the injury was sustained, so if you think you might want to make a claim, it’s a good idea to make an appointment to see a lawyer as soon as you can.

What to expect from a personal injury claim

If a lawyer agrees to take on your personal injury claim, this will usually be because they think that you have a good chance of winning.

The majority of personal injury claims are settled out of court, which means that you shouldn’t need to go through a lengthy trial procedure.

Generally, when you first make your claim, the company that manufactured the product will offer you a settlement amount through their insurance company. It’s important to remember that the job of an insurance company is to pay out as little as possible, so a lot of the time if they are making you an offer, it’s because they know that your claim is worth much more. 

With an experienced lawyer on your side, it’s much easier to tell whether the amount you have been offered is fair for the type of claim. After the initial settlement offer, it’s common for your lawyer to negotiate on your behalf for a more fair amount.

Getting notified of defective products

It can sometimes take a while for product recalls to become effective and for retailers to remove them from the shelves.

You can sign up to be notified of new product recalls on the government website, and if you are buying a product for your child, it’s a good idea to check there to ensure that no recall notices have been issued.

Some of the most common children’s items to be reported as defective are:

• Bunk beds
• Cribs
• Bassinets
• Playpens
• Strollers
• Bicycles
• Pacifiers
• Teething rings
• High chairs

You can ensure there is a lessened risk of injury by paying close attention to age warnings which will tell you whether an item is likely to be appropriate for your child. It’s also a good idea to examine older toys every so often to ensure that they have not become unsafe, for example, by parts becoming loose or by wood beginning to splinter. Finally, if a toy isn’t in use, then remove any batteries as these can leak battery fluid over time.

How many injuries are sustained each year

According to the insurance information institute, in 2019, there were 776 incidents or accidents involving children’s products, which resulted in 58 product recalls. 

This was actually less than in 2018, which shows an improvement in product safety overall. 

As more of our lives are lived online, we have greater access to information, which means that we can be made aware of potential threats much more quickly. This, in turn, means that manufacturers also become aware of issues with their products much more quickly, so overall safety is increasing. 

It can sometimes feel like it isn’t because we hear about it more, but in fact, hearing more about it is a good sign that it’s an issue that’s being addressed.