Legal Question in Personal Injury in Wisconsin
Burn injury at friends house
My 17 yr old son was at a friends house. The kids were all ''gooing around'' with a citranella candle. A lighter had been thrown into the candle. My son attempted to put the flames out with a piece of crumpled newspaper. This exploded in flame, in his hand, causing, 2nd and 3rd degree burns to his right (dominant) hand, from fingertips to elbow. After he was burned, the mother at the house, awoke to the comotion. She is a nurse. She evaluated my son's hand/arm and advised him to go to the emergency room.
He told her that he could not do that since he had been drinking, she then advised him that her husband was a doctor in an emergency room and he was to go there and would not get in trouble. The mother NEVER called for an ambulance, and she never notified myself that my son was going to an E.R.. I was notified by a one of my sons friends. Unfortunately, due to a recent job change, my son does not have any health insurance. He has spent 6 days in a local burn unit, and has undergone ''skin grafting''. Please direct me in the correct direction. My head is spinning!
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: Burn injury at friends house
The first place to look for SOME insurance coverage for what happened would be the homeowners insurance for the property where the incident took place. Most homeowners policies have a medical payments coverage that applies to anyone who is injured at the property, regardless of who may have been at fault. Unfortunately, the coverage might be minimal ($1,000). You should contact the homeowners to see how much medical payments coverage they had. You can then contact the homeowners insurance company and make a claim under the policy.
The only other potential way to recover compensation would be to make a claim under the homeowners liability insurance company for anyone who may have negligently caused the injuries. Recovery would depend upon whether any such negligent party were determined to be more at fault than your son. An issue would be whether your son's actions were reasonable. Did the fire need to be extinguished in order to prevent some catastrophe? Was there a better, safer way to try to extinguish the fire? If it should be determined that your son's negligence exceeded the negligence of the wrongdoer, there would be no recovery.
I do not think that anything that the homeowners did after the incident caused injury to your son. Your son did get to the hospital, where the burns were treated. Compensation for post-incident negligence would only be actionable if the negligence caused some additional injury to your son.
You may call me if you have any questions about this.
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