Legal Question in Personal Injury in California

Re: Who is financially responsible?

First, If the little league field was owned by a city or other governmental entity, you only have six months in which to file a governmental entity claim on behalf of your son. Otherwise your son may loose his rights to a claim. The city or other property owner possibly may be negligent based on the way they left this trailor and a metal ladder in an area where young children play. I do not believe that the little league itself would have much responsibility because your son was not engaging in a sporting activity.

Some might say that four and five year old children are too young to be left playing unsupervised on someone else's property where there is other equipment around. Why wasn't your son being supervised given his age and the area where he was? There are some arguments that others may use if you make a claim against the property owner.

The other girl who you indicate was four or five years of age is probably too young to know and aprpeciate the dangers involved and generally the law indicates that any child under the age of 7 years of age is incapable of being "negligent." That means there may also be a problem in bringing a claim against the girl's parents and their homeowner's insurance.

You should contact an attorney who is experienced in property and premises liability claims in the city where the accident took place. If you are in the Orange County area, please call and I will be glad to give you a further consultation free.

Yours truly, Sam M. Eagle, Attorney, 10101 Slater Avenue, Suite # 218, Fountain Valley, California 92708, phone (714) 963-5123.

Re: Who is financially responsible?

Parents are financially responsible for torts committed by their minor children. You thus would have a fairly good case against the girl and her parents for the medical bills. If the family isn't wealthy and has no insurance, however, you might not get anywhere with such a suit.

You don't specify whether the grounds crew was employed by the league or by some other entity like your city's parks department, but whoever left the equipment might be liable as well. You would face two obstacles in bringing such a claim, though. First, this defendant would be liable only if the grounds crew's actions are deemed negligent; if leaving the equipment where they did is considered appropriate, then you would likely lose (you might get a finding of negligence if the trailer is found to be an "attractive nuissance" -- e.g. the kind of thing that would attract children and lead to injuries as happened here).

The second obstacle to such a claim is more serious. With *very* few exceptions, a defendant in a negligence action is only liable for injuries to the plaintiff which were actually caused by the defendant's actions. The causal chain can be rather long, but where someone else's *intentional* actions intervene to cause the injury, then the prior negligence is seldom considered the legal cause.

You should consult a local attorney about this case and present him/her with more details than you were able to provide here.

Re: Who is financially responsible?

The girls' father is a source of recovering some of your damages, as is the little league's insurance carrier, and the park was probably government property. And the trailer was an attractive nuisance that would tempt kids to play on it. So file a governmental claim so that there's some money there. Needs to be done within 180 days of the accident. If any or all of these people don't cooperate. This means their insurance company doesn't come up with some money, retain an attorney, and file a law suit. So the little girl took him up on his challenge. Well Mother it was a lesson learned.

Re: Who is financially responsible?

I think you would be best to hire an attorney right away, especially before you speak to anyone else or fill anything else out.

Joel Selik

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