Legal Question in Personal Injury in California

Under the Civil Code parents are responsible for the special damages (out of pocket costs, such as medical bills) caused by their children. The damages are capped at $25,000. Most homeowners insurance policies will cover these types of claims.

First off, your question is unclear. You start by calling the boy your nephew, but later refer to yourself as a parent and say that you and your ex share custody. My sense is that either he is your son or he somehow ended up being raised by you and your ex. If he really is your nephew and you and your ex are not his primary caregivers, then I don't see how you could be liable. Of course, I also don't see why you would have written your question the way you did.

Putting that aside, I agree with Mr. Tashjian. I'd like to add a few words about why you can be sued for an accident.

Our laws protect people who have been harmed by the wrongful conduct of another. But there is a difference between "wrongful" and "intentional". Some wrongful conduct is intentional, but some is merely negligent. Under certain circumstances, where a plaintiff is injured by a defendant's negligence she can successfully sue for compensation. This is why car crashes often result in lawsuits -- very few of them are intentional, but the plaintiff does not need to show intent in order to win.

So if you are running and accidentally knock someone over, you can properly be held liable for her injuries. The question then becomes can you be sued when your child does the same thing.

We all know that children sometimes break things or injure other people. We also know that very few children have significant amounts of their own money. If the injured parties could only sue the child, then they would rarely be compensated. It would not be fair to make someone else pay the price for your child's behavior, so the law makes you responsible instead.

Unlike the other child's parents, you at least had the opportunity to teach your son to be more careful around other people. If you were not financially responsible for his actions, then you would have less incentive to teach him this important lesson. The law makes you liable so you will have more incentive. It would make no sense to put the incentive on the victim's parents, since they could not have known ahead of time that your child would injure theirs and since, even if they knew, they were not in a position to instill better behavior.

I'm not trying to say you are a bad parent, or even a bad uncle. Even great parents who do a wonderful job raising great kinds will often find themselves in the position you're in. But *somebody* has to pay for the other boy's injuries, and there is little reason to put that burden on the other parents.

The law also recognizes that parents have only so much control over their children, that even the best-raised children misbehave and make mistakes, and that children can potentially cause a great deal of harm. (Think of a small child playing with a box of matches and you'll see what I mean.) That is why it caps parents' liability, as Mr. Tashjian pointed out. I doubt that the damages in this case will exceed the cap, but they just might. At least you have some protection from a very large claim.