El Paso Defective Products for Children Lawyer

Helping Across the State of Texas

When a child is injured, it’s always a frightening experience for the parent. When the injury is caused by the product of a negligent company, you have the right to pursue compensation.

If you’re reading this, you may have a child who’s been injured by a defective product. You’re probably worried and frustrated, if not downright angry. You may have lost income due to missing work to take care of your child. You may have been saddled with medical bills, adding to the financial strain you’re already experiencing. You are probably looking for someone to help with a defective products for children claim.

We are here to help. Our firm offers free legal consultations. Call our El Paso defective products for children lawyer today.

Don’t worry about whether you have the money to pay for the answers you need upfront. Just give us a call as soon as you can and schedule a free legal consultation.

The information on this page will help you understand your defective products for children claim. We’ll begin with the many ways you can damage the value of your claim without realizing it. Then, we’ll share a client story to convey additional important information you’ll need to know. Be sure to read to the end of the page learn as much as possible.

Common Defective Products for Children Claim Mistakes

It’s unfortunate, but there are numerous ways you can harm the value of your claim. Please review the mistakes below to help protect your claim’s value.

Not Going to the Doctor After the Accident

It’s far less common for parents to put off a doctor’s visit for their child than they would for themselves. Most parents err on the side of caution if they think their child has been harmed in some way. If you aren’t sure, however, it’s best to err on the side of caution and take your child in to the doctor for an exam.

Naturally, doing so will ensure your child is treated if something is wrong, and give you the peace of mind of having taken action. It will also help protect the value of your claim.

The less time that passes between the accident and when you get your child to a doctor, the harder it will be for the insurance company to deny responsibility. Going to the doctor establishes a timeline of when the injuries occurred. This will become helpful evidence in a defective products for children claim. The more closely the date and time of your appointment align with the accident that injured your child, the stronger a connection you will have to prove the validity of your claim.

Not Paying Attention to the Doctor’s Treatment Plan

After your child is treated for an injury, it’s imperative that you follow the steps outlined by your doctor to assist with your child’s recovery. This may take the form of medication that must be taken according to schedule. It may be follow-up appointments, physical therapy appointments, or something else. It will almost certainly involve a period of rest before returning to the previous activity level.

It’s vital to pay attention to whatever your doctor instructs you to do for a treatment plan. This will help your child recover and will protect the value of your claim.

If you don’t follow the treatment plan, the insurance company can actually try to blame you, if your child has a difficult time recovering. Don’t give the insurance company the chance to compound the harm your family has already suffered by using this tactic. Follow your doctor’s treatment plan carefully.

Agreeing to Give the Insurance Provider a Recorded Statement

After a defective products injury, you can expect the insurance company to come around asking for a recorded statement from you. It’s a mistake to agree to provide such a statement.

The insurance company may imply that giving them a statement is necessary to process your claim as quickly as possible. They may imply this is “just a routine formality.”

Neither of these claims is true. The only party that will be helped by providing a recorded statement is the insurance company. They are looking for information they can twist to show that you are somehow at least partially to blame for your child’s injury. As despicable as this sounds, it’s how they save money. The less responsibility that sticks to them, the less they have to pay out in compensation.

You have the right to refuse to speak to the insurance company without your lawyer present. The best course of action is to defer communications with the insurance company to your El Paso defective products for children lawyer.

Waiting Too Long to Hire a Lawyer

Experiencing an emergency involving your child brings out the protective instinct in any parent. If you’re in the middle of this type of situation, you’re probably feeling less than trusting of strangers right now.

Having a healthy skepticism is a good precaution, especially with regard to the insurance company. There are, however, many reasons that it’s to your great benefit to find an attorney you trust to help you as soon as possible.

You may be putting off looking for a lawyer in hopes of handling your child’s claim yourself. If so, know that people who take on the insurance companies without a lawyer to provide guidance and legal “muscle” statistically get awards many times lower than their counterparts who have attorneys.

A lawyer will know how to accurately assess your child’s damages so that you don’t leave compensation on the table. A lawyer will guard against the tactics the insurance company is likely to try to damage your claim. An attorney has the legal “heft” to drag the insurance company into court if negotiations fail.

A lawyer will also be able to effectively assess all of the parties who need to be held accountable in your claim. Is it just the manufacturer or does the daycare facility or preschool also need to be included? Without the guidance of a skilled personal injury attorney, you may end up with far less compensation than you deserve for your child’s injuries.

In addition, without an attorney in your corner, you’re far more likely to have your claim delayed and denied, forcing you into a frustrating appeals process. Without a lawyer, it’s to the insurance company’s benefit to make the claims process a nightmare, because attempting to negotiate a settlement is most likely your first — and last— stand. They know you aren’t likely to end up in court at all, much less win your case against their lawyers in front of a jury.

A far more likely scenario is you either giving up or agree to the first lowball offer they eventually give you, fearing there won’t be another.

A second reason you may delay finding an attorney is that you mistakenly believe the statute of limitations gives you plenty of time to file a claim.

This is a mistake because it has nothing to do with how long you have to file; it has to do with having your eye on the wrong “ball.”

The evidence to support your claim is almost certain to “evaporate” long before the statute of limitations runs out for filing your claim. Accident scenes get cleared away. Evidence can get “lost,” intentionally or otherwise. Witnesses can forget crucial details or even change their minds about testifying after time has passed. In addition, the longer you wait, the higher the chances are that a witness’ contact information may change.

Give your claim the best possible chance to succeed by hiring an attorney as soon as possible. The longer your lawyer has to investigate and build your claim, the stronger it will be.

Choosing the Wrong Attorney for Your Claim

When you set out to hire an attorney for your defective products for children claim, make sure you do so mindfully. Don’t just hire the first person recommended by a friend or relative. They may be a fantastic divorce attorney, for example, yet lack knowledge and experience in the personal injury realm.

In addition, be sure you hire a trial lawyer. Most cases are settled before they need to be hashed out in front of a jury. Some of them, however, make it all the way into the courtroom. If your case is one of them, you need to have a lawyer by your side who’s prepared to win.

Make sure you hire a personal injury trial attorney with experience winning defective products for children claims, both via negotiation and in the courtroom.

El Paso Defective Products for Children Client Story

We are sharing the client story below to help you better understand what to expect in your defective products for children claim. As you may expect, names and specifics have been changed to protect our client’s privacy. The information, however, remains valuable. Please read to the end to learn as much as possible. When you’ve finished, please call us to schedule your free legal consultation.

On a cool November day not so long ago in Texas, Erin Walsh arrived early to pick up her three-year-old daughter, Aggie from preschool.

Erin loved to watch her daughter play with the other children, without being aware her mom had arrived yet. When Aggie had begun preschool two months before, she’d experienced significant separation anxiety when Erin left each morning. Two months later, things were going great, but Erin liked to watch her daughter, just to reassure herself she’d made the right decision by keeping her enrolled. After all, the entire point was for Aggie to socialize and have fun.

Erin had always been an attentive mom, but was also wary of not being one of those “helicopter moms” people speak so negatively about. The whole “Let her cry it out” advice from the preschool had felt so wring to Erin. It had been excruciating for them both for Erin to leave while her Aggie’s body was wracked with sobs and cries of, “Mama, mama!”

The afternoon Erin arrived, she saw Aggie playing happily with another little girl. It gave her comfort.

Erin then noticed the absence of any teachers in the room. Neither Ms. Marburger nor Miss Joanie, the teacher’s aide, were in sight.

“That’s odd,” thought Erin as she stepped to the center of the room and spun a slow “360.” There. Both women were behind the teacher’s desk, discussing something or other.

Aggie called the teacher’s desk the “Fort,” and rightly so. The enormous gray, squat metal desk defended the corner like a miniature city block ringed by tall, multi-colored, stackable filing tray “skyscrapers” along three sides.

The desk was so encumbered by papers and coffee-tins of pencils, markers and other craft-making detritus, you couldn’t see whether anyone was at the desk from the front or the side that wasn’t against the wall.

The “barricade” always bothered Erin; it was as if the teacher was trying to keep the students away. But if she couldn’t be seen back there, how could the teacher see the students? Erin wondered if the teacher had a solid grasp of what went on in her classroom at all.

She knew the ornery woman planned to retire in the next year or so. Whatever passion had drawn her to teaching had clearly long ago left the building.

As these thoughts flashed through Erin’s mind, Aggie toddled over and wrapped chubby arms around Erin’s pant leg, squeezing the fabric with tiny, soft, sausage fingers.

Erin reached stroked her daughter’s hair and turned to see a miniature plastic mailbox hanging from Aggie’s mouth. She immediately dropped to her knees in front of Aggie and opened her mouth.

One of the toy townspeople from the little village was in Aggie’s mouth. The mailman. Thankfully, the old-fashioned free-standing mailbox the mailman was attached to by one arm was too large for Aggie to swallow. Erin very carefully pulled the toy free.

It was missing an arm.

The blood drained from Erin’s face as she looked back at Aggie in fear. Her daughter read her expression, becoming fearful herself, and began to cry. Erin scooped the toddler up and interrupted the summit going on behind the “fort” to ask if either of the women were aware that the arm had come off the mailman, and if one of them had already collected the missing piece.

Miss Joanie put a pale trembling had to her throat and stammered that she hadn’t noticed. “But surely, it must have come like that… all the toys are rated ‘toddler-safe,’ Aggie couldn’t have….?” She looked to the teacher, who immediately went into damage control.

“Mrs. Walsh,” Mrs. Marburger said in the same tone she used for her students, “I assure you this classroom is well under control.” She then shot Miss Joanie a look that made the aide turn away and fuss over the nearest child.

“Every toy in this classroom is rated toddler-safe and guaranteed not to come apart. Aggie wouldn’t have the strength to dismember that toy. It must have come that way. Defective on arrival, but surely still in one piece,” she said. The growing shrillness in her voice said she didn’t believe her own bluster.

The teacher’s tone turned Erin’s concern into frustrated anger. “How would you know, buried beneath this, this ‘fort!’ You’d better hope my child is all right,” Erin said, carrying Aggie to the door.

Ms. Marburger harrumphed. “Mrs. Walsh, threats do not become you,” said the indignant teacher.

Erin stopped mid-stride, turned on her heel and walked back to the teacher. Drawing her tiny frame to its full height of five-foot-nothing, she peered up into the woman’s hooded eyes and said, “That wasn’t a threat. It was a statement of fact. You, Ma’am, are responsible for the welfare of each of these little ones.”

Erin then turned to the aide, who was standing frozen, pale-faced, hand still fluttering uselessly at her throat. “So are you,” she said firmly before walking out.

Instead of heading home, Erin brought her daughter to the walk-in medical facility a mile away. She explained the situation to the nurse, adding that the toddler had in fact seemed all right when they’d left the school, but had begun to fuss and cry in her car seat on the way to the exam. She’d been intermittently fussing and crying since then.

Precautionary x-rays were taken, and an hour after arriving at the center, a harried doctor swept into the room.

“Nothing is showing up on the x-rays right now, but we’d like you to bring Aggie back tomorrow for another precautionary x-ray. The plastic toy part may be there but not yet showing up in her digestive tract.”

“By morning, if it’s there, we should be able to see it, though it may be beyond reach of the endoscope. If it’s stuck, we’ll need to remove it surgically to prevent bowel perforation or obstruction.”

When Aggie was discharged, Erin was given a long list of symptoms to watch for until morning, including fever, blood in Aggie’s saliva, gagging, vomiting, and numerous other warning signs.

By five a.m., Erin and her husband Ryan were in the emergency room with Aggie. The toddler had begun vomiting.

A second x-ray revealed the mailman’s arm had lodged in her intestinal tract. The doctors surgically removed it and released Aggie later that day, but Aggie had to spend a week in the hospital.

The Walshes called us the day they brought their daughter home. days later. They wanted to know if they had a possible claim against the toy manufacturer. They also wanted to know how much it would cost to hire us, how much a claim would be worth, and how long it might take.

How much does it cost to hire a lawyer?

As the couple sat down in our office, Ryan said, “Before we get into Aggie’s situation, we need to know what you charge.”

Our lawyer told the couple there would be no upfront charge. “We work on a contingency fee model. Our firm handles all claim expenses, including investigation, research, administration, and if necessary, litigation. We only get paid after bringing a successful resolution to your claim.”

The Walshes looked at one another and nodded. Erin then proceeded to lay out the details of how Aggie was injured, squeezing Ryan’s hand as she spoke.

When she’d finished, she took a deep breath and they asked in unison, “Do you think we have a claim?”

Our lawyer asked additional questions and made notes, and then said that they may have a claim not only against the toy manufacturer, but also the preschool.

“We will of course need to do a thorough investigation, to be sure, but at this point, it looks as if the toy did not live up to its guarantee of being toddler-safe. In addition, it sounds as if the instructors at the preschool were negligent in their duty to ensure the safety of the children.”

How much is my claim worth?

“What do you think a claim like this is worth?” asked Ryan.

Our lawyer explained that determining a claim’s value is not something that can be done without detailed information.

“The truth is, there are no ‘claims like this,’ in that every claim is unique in circumstances, injury type, and the specific physiology and health of the victim,” said the lawyer.

“As I mentioned, we’ll need to do a thorough investigation. In addition, we’ll need Aggie to reach what is called, ‘maximum medical improvement.’ This means recovering to the point that her doctors are confident she has returned to her ‘normal,’ pre-accident level of health.

“If her prior level of health is no longer attainable, then maximum medical improvement will be when she reaches a ‘new normal’ level of health. In either case, it will mean she’s through with surgeries and the doctors clearly understand what, if any, future care of her injuries will be needed.

“When Aggie reaches maximum medical improvement, we’ll understand her damages. That’s when we’ll be able to accurately tell you the value of your claim.”

“All of this means your job from here on out will be to tend to your daughter. Focus on her treatment plan and helping her recover; we’ll handle all aspects of Aggie’s case. The calmer you are, the calmer she is likely to be, which will help her rest and recover.”

How long will my claim take?

Erin and Ryan nodded they understood. “How long would Aggie’s claim take?” Erin asked.

“We can’t accurately predict the timeline of your daughter’s claim right now because the timeline will depend on two factors we can’t control,” said the lawyer.

“The first factor is how long it takes Aggie to reach maximum medical improvement. Once she’s there, we’ll know her damages and will send a demand letter to the insurance company.

“From that point onward, the timeline of the claim is going to depend on how the insurance company responds. If they are willing to arrive at a fair settlement, we’ll be all set to wrap up Aggie’s case without further delay. If they won’t settle, we’ll sue them in court.

“Don’t let the possibility of a trial worry you, though. Our firm has a long, successful history of winning court cases in addition to winning settlements. The insurance company is bound to know our name. They may even settle just to avoid dealing with us in court.

“In either case, we’re more than up to the task,” said the attorney. “That’s why whether you retain our firm or another, we recommend you hire a personal injury trial lawyer with a winning record in defective products for children claims.”

“Erin and Ryan were satisfied with the answers they received in their free legal consultation. They retained our firm and we are happy to say that we got them nine times more than the insurance companies’ first offers combined, including punitive damages.

Call Our El Paso Defective Products for Children Lawyer Today

We hope this has given you a clearer picture of your defective products for children liability claim. As no two cases are identical, we urge you to call our El Paso defective products for children lawyer as soon as you’re able to schedule your free legal consultation. Don’t take on the burden of navigating the claims process alone. Let us take your case off of your shoulders so you can focus on your child.