Legal Question in Personal Injury in Minnesota

Re: pesticide posion

The answer may depend on many things, not the least of which is the age of your son. Generally statutes of limitation are short and generally do not span longer than six years at the most.

Second, there is a question of negligence. You son was not employed by the company and, as a result, it may not have been reasonably forseeable that he would come into contact with the chemical. In fact, his father's negligence in exposing him to the chemical may hurt your case significantly.

Finally, another significant hurdle is that children may develop asthma for any number of reasons. Tying your son's asthma to the exposure may be difficult and is a necessary element of any case. You would need an expert, a physician, to testify that in his/her medical opinion, the exposure to the chemical caused the asthma.

I am not saying there is no case, but I am saying it would be extremely difficult and, I imagine, one that you would have a difficult time finding an attorney to take.

Re: pesticide posion

I have reviewed my colleague�s response to your question and, for the most part, agree that there could be several difficult hurdles. Nevertheless, I encourage you to contact my office and discuss the matter further.

The first question in evaluating any such claim is whether the statute of limitations has run on any possible claims that could be made. As a very general matter, once a child turns 18, he or she has a limited period of time in which to make a claim. Therefore, You should not delay evaluating this issue.

The second question is much more difficult, and concerns the nature of the claim � who would be sued, and for what?

There are not enough facts in your question to adequately answer this question, which is why I would encourage you to contact my office to further discuss the matter. Nevertheless, there are several possible claims that could be made, some against your son�s father (the least desirable), to a possible claim against the manufacturer of the pesticide Vapona.

A number of years ago there were a series of claims against several distributors of this pesticide that mostly concerned problems with inadequate warnings on the product label. Although your son�s father may have some responsibility for exposing your son to the chemical, and although it may be difficult to establish a connection between exposure and asthma, you may have a viable claim that is worth exploring.

Although this could be a difficult case, I encourage you to contact my office to discuss the matter. My contact information is below.

Take care, and again, thank you for your question.