Grossman Law Offices are the best attorneys that I know. They helped me when my husband was killed in a railroad accident.
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R. Seagroves
Wife of a Wrongful Death Victim
Fatality Caused by a Defective Car Seat
Attorney Michael Grossman Explains Your Options if Your Child Was Killed due to a Defective Car Seat
There is a reason why state law requires small children to ride in car seats when they’re in the car – because children need extra protection in the event of a car accident.
If your child died a result of a child safety seat failing to perform its duty then you have may have the right to seek compensation through a wrongful death product liability lawsuit against the manufacturer. However, whether or not you are eligible to pursue such a lawsuit will depend on the circumstances of your child’s death.
At Grossman Law Offices, Michael Grossman and his team of associates have been handling wrongful death, personal injury, and product liability lawsuits for 20 years, so we have the experience and know-how to help you get the compensation you deserve for the loss of your loved one. First, we want to help you understand a little bit more about the basics involved with wrongful death litigation involving defective child seats, so you can better understand your legal options.
How Do You Know if You Have a Legitimate Wrongful Death Lawsuit after a Fatal Incident Involving a Defective Car Seat?
In order to have a potentially successful wrongful death lawsuit of any kind, the victim’s family, also known as the plaintiffs, must be able to prove the party who caused or contributed to the cause of the fatal accident was negligent. To do so, the plaintiffs must establish that the circumstances of their loved one’s death contained three essential components:
- Duty – the defendant owed the victim some sort of responsibility not to do them harm. When it comes to fatal car safety seat accidents, this not only entails that a car seat be constructed properly but also that its instructions be easy enough to follow to ensure safe usage. Studies have shown that as many as 60 percent of all car safety seats have not been installed properly. In order to combat this problem, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration began rating child safety seats for their ease of use in 2003. Thus, the car seat manufacturers have the duty of providing adequate instructions and installation procedures that are simple enough to be followed correctly by mothers and fathers who are not mechanically inclined.
- Breach – the required duty was ignored by the defendant. This either means that the car seat itself was mechanically faulty, or it means that the instructions were too complex to be accurately followed, allowing for safe installation of the seat.
- Causation – the breach of duty caused or contributed to the cause of the death. Quite simply, the defective child safety seat resulted either directly or indirectly in the death of your child.
What Damages Can You Seek After a Fatal Accident?
If you can prove duty, breach, and causation, then your family has the right to seek compensation from the manufacturer of the car seat through a product liability lawsuit. However, you may be wondering what damages you are entitled to seek. The family of the deceased child can seek both wrongful death damages and survival damages. While in other wrongful death lawsuits allow spouses, children, and parents to seek wrongful death damages, in a fatal child safety seat accident, obviously, the parents will be the only eligible parties to pursue wrongful death damages, the purpose of which is to compensate these loved ones both for the financial trauma and emotional suffering they have endured. Wrongful death damages may include restitution for:
- Funeral expenses.
- Emotional and mental trauma caused by the child’s death.
- Loss of the distinct familial love the child provided.
On the contrary, survival damages can only be sought by the closest living relative of the deceased, usually a parent, but it could also be a sibling in this case if no parents are available. Survival damages make this person the proxy for the deceased child, seeking the damages for the victim’s actual suffering and financial losses. Survival damages can entail compensation for:
- The victim’s pain and suffering.
- Medical bills incurred by the victim prior to death.
- Mental and emotional distress felt by the victim.
It should be noted, in Arkansas, families must appoint a personal representative of the estate before moving forward with the pursuit of a wrongful death lawsuit involving a defective child safety seat, further increasing the need for a skilled and knowledgeable wrongful death attorney with experience handling cases involving defective child safety seats. However, Texas has no such requirement.
What Grossman Law Offices Can Do for You
No matter what state your child was killed, you will need a competent wrongful death attorney on your side in order to successfully secure compensation for your child’s death. You need someone with experience to conduct a thorough investigation to identify the party or parties that caused the safety seat to fail and to gather the proof to make the case against them.
Moreover, calculating damages is not a task to be undertaken by a novice. While some forms of compensation, like medical bills, are cut and dry, others like pain and suffering and emotional and mental distress are far more vague. Only someone with experience handling other defective car seat cases can have an idea of how much the emotional distress of the child’s mother is worth. While it might seem tacky to put a price tag on your child’s life, seeking a wrongful death lawsuit is the only means you have of bringing the party who caused your loved one’s death to justice. Moreover, you will likely never recover fully on an emotional level from your child’s untimely death, but our attorneys at Grossman Law Offices can help you recover financially.
For more than two decades, Grossman Law Offices has been helping grieving families recover from the wrongful deaths of their loved ones. We understand the importance of a quick and diligent investigation, and we know what to do with the evidence when we find it. We’ve handled other defective car seat cases, so we also have relationships with expert witnesses who can testify as to what a car seat is supposed to do and how a particular safety seat failed in that respect. Thanks to our diligent work both in the courtroom fighting for verdicts and outside the courtroom, negotiating settlements, hundreds of Texans and Arkansans have obtained many millions of dollars in damages to compensate for their lost loved ones. Due to our long history of success, most American insurance companies know our reputation and often offer our clients fair settlements without the need of a jury trial.
If you have lost a child in an accident due to a faulty car-seat, then call us now for a free consultation at 1-855-589-5645 (toll free). You can discuss your case with one of our wrongful death attorneys, ask any questions you may have, and find out what legal venues you have available. Don’t go through this trying time alone – call someone who can help.
The family of a deceased woman hired our firm following a fatal 18-wheeler accident. The fatal accident occurred as the driver of an 18-wheeler lost control of his vehicle and veered out of his lane, resulting in a massive collision. The decedent, a passenger in a vehicle, died on the scene.
Her adult children consulted our firm to initially investigate the accident and make sense of the facts and circumstances since the family felt that the police report did not make it clear enough precisely what occurred. We launched a full investigation an immediately deposed the investigating officers.
Upon the completion of our investigation, it was apparent that the trucking company was indeed negligent and a lawsuit was soon filed. The defendant's launched an aggressive defense whereby they initially claimed that the truck driver was overcome by his passenger who allegedly grabbed the steering wheel and deliberately drove the truck off the road, despite the truck driver's best efforts.
We refuted this claim by illustrating that the tire marks that were present clearly show the truck gradually moving across the road and eventually onto the grass, which is entirely inconsistent with an abrupt lane change caused by someone taking control of the wheel. It was quite an unusual defense strategy that we were frankly surprised to even find ourselves having to refute.
The defendants then argued that a tire blowout may have contributed to the accident, which is significant because it would enable the defendant to offset some portion of their liability to a tire manufacturer or installer. Through deposition testimony of the investigating officer we established that there was absolutely no indication at the scene of the accident that a tire had blown out.
Finally, the defendants argued that the company which loaded the trailer may have improperly loaded the cargo. This argument was most plausible considering that the precise cause of the decedent's death was that she was essentially pummeled by cargo that broke through trailer and struck her person.
Our firm consulted several experts in the fields of heavy cargo transportation and physics. Our experts felt that the cargo was secured in a manner that is perfectly consistent with industry standards and that due to the forces involved, the cargo would not have behaved any differently irrespective of how it was secured. In short, the collision caused the cargo to break free and the negligence lay squarely on the trucking company and not any other entity. The case was successfully resolved through litigation.
$2,000,000.00
$775,000.00
$25,000.00
Facility sued for negligent contribution to the death of an innocent bystander. A fatal shooting occurred on the property after the facility failed to appropriately respond to outbursts of violence & gang activity. Following the young man's death, his parents hired our firm to pursue the facility for their negligent actions including failure to provide adequate security. The case was successfully resolved through litigation.
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(policy limits) A husband and father of three was killed when the driver of an 18-wheeler veered into oncoming traffic, striking the young man's vehicle and several others. The defendant was employed by a small construction company that operated only a single 18-wheeler. As such, the defendants were largely underinsured and were not financially solvent.
Furthermore, the defendants had an eroding insurance policy and numerous other parties were intent upon filing claims of their own since the 18-wheeler struck multiple other vehicles. This created the need for an aggressive and rapid response before the other claimants could erode the policy.
Defense counsel made it clear that they wished to litigate the case despite the insurmountable liability arguments that our attorneys presented. They intended to designate a third party as a responsible defendant since the accident happened in a construction zone, even though it was abundantly clear that the construction zone played no role in the crash.
Additonally, the defendants made it clear that they wished to downplay the extent of the damages by virtue of a character assasination on the decedent. Fortunately for our clients, our firm has successfully litigated against the defendant's insurer in nearly a dozen cases, so the carrier was quite aware of our courtroom capabilities. We presented a sample lawsuit to the defendant's insurance carrier and informed them that the lawsuit was to be filed the moment that they refused to settle.
Additionally, our attorneys submitted a Stowers' Demand with a brief window of time for the defendants to respond. We made it abundantly clear that we intended to seek punitive damages and that we would assert the full limits of the carrier's exposure under the Stowers' Demand should the carrier not offer policy limits.
The defendant's attorney adamantly persuaded the carrier to litigate, however, our attorney's threats of litigation, past track record, and incredibly aggressive pre-litigation actions convinced the insurance carrier to disregard their own attorney's advice and to settle the case, lest they face our attorneys in court.
Had our clients been represented by virtually any other firm who did not have our specific track record or who would have not recognized that this case required special and immediate attention coupled with an abnormally aggressive stance, the client's would have certainly been tied up in litigation for years, with the limited supply of funds rapidly depleting since the other claimants who did not need to litigate would have essentially had right of first refusal.
$1,000,000.00
$333,333.00
$0.00
(policy limits) Our attorneys secured a recovery against a major trucking company for the daughter of a man who was killed after his vehicle collided into an 18-wheeler which was blocking the roadway. Litigation is ongoing against additional defendants.
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(policy limits) Our firm was hired to pursue an intoxicated driver who killed an elderly school crossing guard. The fatal accident occurred as the decedent was escorting a woman and her child across the roadway through a crosswalk. The defendant then sped through the school zone, in an intoxicated a state, and struck the decedent who died on the scene.
The family hired our firm to investigate and pursue the defendant under a wrongful death cause of action. Following our investigation and preliminary vehicle inspection, our attorneys issued a Stowers' demand to the defendants. A significant factor in resolving this claim is that merely days before we submitted our demand to the defendant' insurance carrier, we won a large case against the very same insurance carrier, which was one of several such victories secured against the carrier in our firm's history. Our threats of litigation were therefore heeded and the defendants offered policy limits to settle the claim without the need to file suit.
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A young handicapped woman lost her life when a long-term care facility failed to provide her with treatment for obvious symptoms of severe illness. The defendants maintained that there were no outwardly visible signs of illness. The medical evidence showed otherwise. The case was successfully resolved through litigation, though damages caps imposed by tort reform were a factor.
$400,000.00
$132,000.00
$25,000.00
Recovery for family of victim who died after receiving the wrong medication.
$625,000.00
$206,250.00
$5,000.00
(policy limits) Recovery of a disputed life insurance policy for the family of a contractor who died on the job.
$150,000.00
$50,000.00
$341.00
(policy limits) A father of two was killed on the job when he fell from a personnel platform atop an elevated piece of machinery. The defendant was initially afforded protection from a liability suit by virtue of their workers' comp policy. Upon thorough investigation, it became evident that gross negligence was at the root of the accident, and suit was filed accordingly. A successful outcome was obtained through litigation.
$550,000.00
$220,000.00
$40,000.00
A young woman lost her life after a bar over served her to more than three times the legal limit resulting in her burning to death in a single-vehicle accident. Witnesses stated that she was so intoxicated that she could barely make it to her vehicle without assistance. Through litigation, our attorneys ascertained the necessary evidence to prove that the establishment provided alcohol to an obviously intoxicated person, thus resulting in her ultimate demise.
$550,000.00
$220,000.00
$25,000.00