Legal Question in Personal Injury in California
My son was playing indoor soccer at a team party and there were a number of children and adults playing. One of the adults was playing against my son and fell on him causing his clavicle to break. He has had to have surgery to re-set the bone with a plate and screws. We have insurance but do have a deductible and a large out of pocket responsibility. Do we have any right to ask the adult man who fell on him, causing the break, to assist with these medical bills?
3 Answers from Attorneys
You have a right to ask anything you want. Whether you have a legal right to recovery would depend on far more detail about the causation of the accident than you could possibly go into in an internet Q&A format like this.
Understand that if you were to take legal action on your son's behalf, your health insurance provider has a lien on any settlement or judgment - you can't just sue for your out of pocket deductible, you have to sue for what the health insurer paid as well.
One difficulty in a case like is the doctrine of "assumption of the risk" - essentially participating voluntarily in an activity (such as a game soccer) means you assume the risk of the injuries associated with that activity (breaking your clavicle after a larger participant falls on you). While this may not eliminate your son's chance of recovering for his losses, it does reduce the amount he could expect to collect.
The first question I would ask is why were the adults playing soccer against children and where did this game take place at? Does the facility where the game took place at have insurance and does the adult who fell on your son have homeowner's insurance? These are all important questions.
My office provides free initial consultations on all cases and we represent injured people like your son on a contingency basis which means that you do not have to pay us any attorney�s fees unless we recover a settlement for you. I have been an attorney for almost 20 years and I have exclusively represented injured people like you in my career. My office provides unparalleled representation to all of our clients. We are aggressive and we fight for all of our clients in order to get the compensation they serve for their injuries. Please visit our website at hakiminjurylaw.com and you can contact me directly at 1800-LAW-TALK.