Seeing your child in pain may be the hardest thing a parent has to bear. Worse, it can be infuriating. What if the injury has taken away part of their childhood or even changed the course of their life? How can a parent make that right?
A Rio Rancho child injury lawyer understands the pain and weight of your family’s circumstances. Our personal injury attorneys draw on compassion as well as experience to protect their youngest clients.
Our attorneys work in many areas of personal injury law, and each of them poses particular risks to children, especially:
After a serious accident, a child cannot play, learn, or enjoy life for months or years, if at all. Children who can recover physically from major injuries are still likely to struggle with psychological trauma, which can lead to acting out, severe anxiety, or difficulties with school.
Families have to bear the intense pressures of caregiving, as well as pay for that care. Medical costs for a catastrophic injury can reach hundreds of thousands of dollars or, over the years, even into the millions. Any family whose child was in an accident will need to seek compensation whenever it is possible.
Childhood injury survivors in Rio Rancho have special protections under the law. Once the child’s parents come to a settlement agreement on the child’s behalf, a court must approve it to make sure it is binding. The court generally appoints a guardian ad litem, or GAL. This person acts as a neutral party, taking the child’s wishes into account (when possible) and ensuring the assets are safe for future use.
A child cannot file their own lawsuit or claim, but if their parent does not do so, the minor may file a lawsuit up to one year after they reach the age of 18 in most cases per New Mexico Statutes §§ 37-1-8 and 10.
Supporting a recovering child is hard enough. Parents need an attorney who can help them understand and manage the claims process. More than that, the attorney must know how to analyze accidents and determine how much responsibility each party bears. Only then can they prove how much their client can claim in damages.
Corporations and insurance companies will not hesitate to find any reason to deny a claim or offer a lowball settlement. They will review the accident themselves from every angle, and may even try to claim that the injury is not really that severe. Once an experienced child injury attorney has reviewed their client’s case, we will know how much compensation the child can claim and how to defend that right.
As attorneys, we make it our business to help local clients in tough places. For parents and children, there may be no tougher place than this. The New Mexico Accident Firm has years of experience over hundreds of cases, and we would be glad to offer that experience to you.
The safest course is not to make any statements about an accident, even to friends online, before you speak to an attorney. Contact our office to talk to a Rio Rancho child injury lawyer about what happened and how we can help.
