Parents being sued for accident during birthday party

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liaconn

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A friend of mine's daughter will be 7 in a couple of weeks and is dying to have a party. My friend is very reluctant however because her sister and brother in law were sued after their child's last party because another child fell off the swing and broke her front tooth. Apparently the child's uncle is a solicitor and advised them to do this.

Following on all the talk of people looking for someone to take a case against if the slipped on last week's ice this just makes me think the whole compensation culture here has gone absolutely mad and people with a legal background are often the worst culprits.

I know someone else who is a doctor but stays very quiet if she's out and someone needs medical attention for fear of ending up being sued.
 
Doctors in this country seem to have a poor reputation with the non-Irish here. They say that they don't seem to know anything and that patients seem to be referred to a specialist for the slightest thing. Same reason as above - afraid of being sued. The government should step in as it is now beyond ridiculous.

Take Spain for example, works being done on footpaths and roads are regularly left unattended and not fully protected - sheer drops semi-exposed, uprooted paving stones etc. Virtually no claims - except in extreme cases the attitude there is "well, you should watch where you're going shouldn't you?"

Proper order.
 
Totally agree with you on this Liaconn. I actually used to know a family where the mother was compo claim mad and her own relations were disinclined to invite her to their homes in case of a 'fall' and a claim to follow.

One of my neighbours cleared the footpath outside and I DID slip on it - didnt fall, but even if I had, in a million years I wouldnt have dreamt of claiming off them for it, sure I could just as easily have slipped anywhere else on the pavement at the time - its icy all over.
 
My daughter fell at a classmate’s birthday party in Lesureplex in Stillorgan and knocked out a tooth. When I arrived to pick her up the first thing the manager did was offer me the contact details of their solicitor. 7 year old children fall all the time; the place was not unsafe so why the hell would I sue? It was a baby tooth anyway so there was no real harm done.
 
A lot of schools won't let the kids run around in the yard anymore, in case they fall and the school will get sued. It's terrible the way a few greedy, idiot parents can ruin it for all kids.
 
I once had a serviceman call to fix a dishwasher. While in the kitchen with some water from the machine on the floor he said words to the effect "you want to watch those tiles, someone could slip on them & have a claim against you". I didn't leave his sight until he left the house and would never have him back.

Someone said above do accident's ever happen any more, I remember being told as a child "accident's don't happen, they are caused". I wonder if this " someone must have done it to me" culture is, together with begrudgery is somehow hard wired into the national psyche somewhere.
 
I suppose the moral of this is that when your kids' baby teeth fall out naturally, save them and then when someone has a party get the kid to fall over, produce the tooth as a injury and it's hello Disney Land Orlando for the summer holiday.
 
but isn't this what you're public liability insurance is for? a friends child slipped in our yard and broke his front tooth a few years back. we called the insurance co to be safe and they said it was all covered by them if there was to be a claim (which there wasn't)
 
I think the fault lies with judges who award hugh sums for minor injuries and which in any other country would not even end up in court. That and ambulance chasing solictors who instead off telling their client to take a hike actually encourages them
 
Latrade said:
I suppose the moral of this is that when your kids' baby teeth fall out naturally, save them and then when someone has a party get the kid to fall over, produce the tooth as a injury and it's hello Disney Land Orlando for the summer holiday.
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Or you could just break into a house, steal their stuff and sell it... it's the same thing; stealing.
 
I remember my aunt being in the high court a few years back after a bad car accident. The case before hers was a boy who had tripped at a badly lit step on his holidays and lost a tooth. His parents sued the travel agent because it didnt mention the steps in the brochure. He got 15000. Incidentally it took 4 years for my aunts claim to get to court, wonder what is holding things up?:rolleyes:
 
It's not just Ireland, I heard someone on the BBC talking about schools during the bad weather, seemingly some schools which were open had to close their playgrounds because of "health and safety" issues. The headmaster made the comment that if they had closed the school in it's entirety, the kids would have been let out skating and sledging by their parents instead anyway.

I've a colleague of mine who was in a car crash a few years back, she is suing the guy who hit her for over €100k, all she got was a bit of a sore neck for a few weeks. She knows the case will be settled outside of court by the insurers for a proportion of that, hence why she is asking so much. Explains some of the posts elsewhere about increases in car insurance
 
Mpsox said:
I've a colleague of mine who was in a car crash a few years back, she is suing the guy who hit her for over €100k, all she got was a bit of a sore neck for a few weeks. She knows the case will be settled outside of court by the insurers for a proportion of that, hence why she is asking so much. Explains some of the posts elsewhere about increases in car insurance
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I happened upon a TV3 programme the other night, one of those UK "nightmare" programmes. This was about beauty treatments. Some pretty shocking stuff in the last bit I saw a scalp with 3rd degree burns by poorly applied products in a salon and a gaping wound left by dodgy plastic surgeon.

The kind of injury that requires extension repair and treatment and leaves a life long physicaly and psychological scar. In both cases the people sued, they both got around £20K compensation. I just laughed and thought I could probably double that for a bad back here. Suckers.
 
johnd said:
I think the fault lies with judges who award hugh sums for minor injuries and which in any other country would not even end up in court. That and ambulance chasing solictors who instead off telling their client to take a hike actually encourages them
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You are absolutely right. The ambulance chasers initiate the claim. Obviously, not all solicitors are unscrupulous, greedy, and amoral, but many are. The self-congratulatory, and incredibly pompous Incorporated Law Society of Ireland takes no action aganst these people.
 
Mpsox said:
I've a colleague of mine who was in a car crash a few years back, she is suing the guy who hit her for over €100k, all she got was a bit of a sore neck for a few weeks.
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But are you going to do anything about it? If not, why not?

Fraudulent or exaggerated claims constitute theft from all of us.

"Ambulance chasing" lawyers and unduly generous judges may indeed by a significant problem ( I give no opinion on this) but our very Irish inclination to look the other way (whatever you say, say nothing...) is in my opinion the single biggest problem in stamping out bogus claims.

The "ambulance chasers" initiate nothing. It is the claimants who initiate a claim.
 
MOB said:
The "ambulance chasers" initiate nothing. It is the claimants who initiate a claim.
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Well, I thought it would be only a short time until a solicitor would jump to the defence of the so-called Legal Profession. I would probably do the same if I were a solicitor. However, Ireland's compo culture exists as a result of unscrupulous solicitors. If solicitors told potential clients with nonsense claims to get lost and cop on to themselves, there would be no compo culture.

Presumably, MOB will not agree, and that's fair enough.
 
Slash said:
Well, I thought it would be only a short time until a solicitor would jump to the defence of the so-called Legal Profession. I would probably do the same if I were a solicitor. However, Ireland's compo culture exists as a result of unscrupulous solicitors. If solicitors told potential clients with nonsense claims to get lost and cop on to themselves, there would be no compo culture.

Presumably, MOB will not agree, and that's fair enough.
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Just out of interest, note the amount of threads on here that tend to end with "Who's liable?" or "Do I have a case?". This is before any consultation with a solicitor.

A solicitor will take on a case where there is a case. A case exists because of the current legal system rather than because of the solicitor.
 
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