The Positions Of Minors Regarding Personal Injuries

Ask any personal injury lawyer and you will get a reply that it is a general principle that anyone may sue in tort. A minor may bring an action through the capacity of a next person with the appointment of a personal injury lawyer.

The position of minors as Defendants will due knowledge of any personal injury lawyer has not been considered very much by the courts, probably because they would not normally be able to satisfy any judgment. In principle, there is no reason why a person of any age cannot be sued.


In practice, it may be because that the courts set a standard of care according to the age of the child although in theory the standard of care in negligence has always been a reasonable man’s test. It is definitely a tedious task for a personal injury lawyer to carry out deciphering the reasonable man’s test in such cases involving minority interest.

Example: Debbie became pregnant and suffered badly from nausea. Subsequently, she consulted her doctor for some medication to relieve the nausea. A few months later, Debbie gave birth to a daughter who suffered from some physical disability.


Debbie engages a personal injury lawyer and decides to sue the manufacturer and the doctor on behalf of her child.In such a situation, both the doctor and the manufacturer of the drug owed a duty of care to the mother. The baby has suffered damage but the personal injury lawyer will have a problem to prove the case due to causation. It will be necessary for the personal injury lawyer to prove that the drug was the cause of the child’s physical disability.The disability of the child must be a result of a pre-conception event which exposed the child to such risk of physical disability. It will not be accepted by the courts when there were other reasons which resulted in the disability of the child unless it is arguable by the personal injury lawyer that there are certain vitiating circumstances.

• The Positions Of Minors Regarding Personal Injuries