Cautions For The Summertime

This summer we must all exercise extreme caution, especially in avoiding making personal injury claims. I am sure that you might say to yourself “why bother?” but in truth and fact, precaution is a must- especially for the times when you least expect it.

For instance, this past month, a couple was held responsible for a playtime accident that left a young boy with brain damage. The incident occurred when the couple hired in a bouncy castle for a birthday party; unknowingly leading to a high cost personal injury claim. The end result was that the ruling could open floodgates for similar summertime claims.

Timothy and Catherine Perry face a £1 million payout after a High Court judge accused them of “shortfalls in supervision”, leading to the accident that left Sam Harris, now 13, with a fractured skull. Although the couple were insured, legal experts said that the ruling may pave the way for a host of complaints from parents over less serious incidents in which children come to harm while being cared for by others.

Ian Caplin, a lawyer, said: “The concern is that at a children’s party where one child whacks another one over the head with a lollipop and causes mild scarring, a parent will want to take legal action.

“This particular case is very serious, but people might consider litigation when they never would before because it gets into the popular mindset.”

Sam Harris was 11 when he asked Mrs. Perry for permission to play on the bouncy castle she and her husband had hired for their triplets’ 10th birthday in Rochester, Kent, in September.

Precaution is exercised when entertaining young children not only during the summer time, but year round.

If you need some help in identifying areas to avoid running into problems like the Perry’s did, you can follow some of these tips to avoid any unnecessary incidents in the future. This includes extra supervision at events, safety instruction for the children, and constant monitoring. But even then, we cannot predict the unpredictable. As there have even been incidents where the bouncy castles have deflating and lifted off, leading to death (2006 incident in the UK).

Cases like these, leading to costly personal injury compensation and claims often involve death or serious injury and slices into the parenting community; especially for using a source of entertainment such as a bouncy castle. In all honesty, I am well into my 20’s and would still love to play on one!

A complicated moment, with kids making demands from all directions - we’ve all been there. And then, for the Perrys at least, a terrible, life-shattering, split-second, appalling disaster. A child horribly injured, damaged for the rest of his life.

Should we, we ask ourselves, hire a bouncy castle again? Should we allow our kids to go on a bouncy castle? Should we be more worried about the implications of looking after others’ children? Should we allow our kids to be cared for by other parents? In the blame culture, the disturbing truth is that, increasingly, the answer to these questions is: no. And we will all - children, parents, society as a whole - be the poorer for it.

What might be this resolution to funding victims of accidents left up to the courts? This is one topic left for debate, as we are left to wonder if claims would be valid, if parents are responsible, and if the government were to compensate every accident that ever happened, there would be a super-influx of claims, wouldn’t it?

Jamie is an author of several articles pertaining to No Win No Fee, Compensation Claims, Personal Injury Claims and other legal articles.