Legal Question in Business Law in Florida

My company an S-Corp had a suit filed against it as we own a small haircutting retail store and a child's ear got cut. Our liability insurance says they will not cover this due to it being a professional liability claim. We do not have coverage for this and now would expect the lawyer to come after us. The company is not big we barely survive each month after we pay the employees. We have been open a year and have not benn able to pay ourselves at all. By the way we cut ears about once per quarter and this has never happened. The child was videoed by our security cameras and he was out of control, hitting the stylist, etc and the mother did nothing to help after repeated requests.We have signs in location explaining that if your child is "unruly" then there could be some cuts if the parent asks us to continue the cut. The parent was asked several times if she wanted us to stop. What will happen if the lawyer sues my S-Corp now that Liabilty has denied claim?


Asked on 9/06/09, 6:45 pm

2 Answers from Attorneys
Alan Wagner Wagner, McLaughlin & Whittemore P.A.

You need to see a lawyer to determine if your insurance company has treated you correctly. See a lawyer right away. Do not delay.

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Answered on 9/06/09, 8:36 pm
Sarah Grosse Sarah Grosse, Esquire

Agree with Mr. Wagner. You need to have a lawyer determine if the insurance company is right or not -- lots of reading the fine print and perhaps a few phone calls. Other than that, I would say that maybe you should have had professional liability insurance?? Cost prohibitive, I know.

Here is my guess of what the case law may say (just a wild guess): A parent's permission to hurt a child is probably not covered under disclaimers of any sort, unless you have a professional license to do so under very controlled conditions.

Lawyers are just representatives of the claim. Lawyers do not sue you (not like this, anyway), they just sue on behalf of their client. You should take the letter from the lawyer seriously, but don't panic. Get a lawyer on your side who can counter-attack. That's the way it works.

Best of luck.

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Answered on 9/08/09, 9:24 am


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