Toddler Injured While Picking Up Penny in Parking Space
A three year-old from Aurora, Colorado was reportedly rushing to pick up a coin in a parking space in a Wal-Mart parking lot last Saturday when he was ran over by a driver who was trying to pull into the parking space. Apparently, the lady pulling into the space did not see the toddler, who was in the process of bending over to pick up the coin, and ran over the little boy and dragged him for a short distance before coming to a stop. The boy is currently in intensive care as he tries to recover from his injuries.
At first glance this may seem like a pretty clear-cut case of a small child running out in front of an unsuspecting driver, but that may not necessarily be the case from a personal injury standpoint. Drivers who are navigating a parking lot are under a duty to keep a proper lookout for any obstacles that would be commonplace to the area. A jury could reasonably decide that someone driving through a Wal-Mart parking lot could have a duty to keep an extra careful lookout for children, who are frequently seen at Wal-Mart and can behave unpredictably. It is not an extremely rare occurrence that a child darts in front of a vehicle in a parking lot or at least makes an attempt to do so before being reined in by an attentive parent. In a comparative fault state like Tennessee, a jury could determine that at least a small percentage of liability for the accident should be attributed to the driver’s negligence, making the driver responsible for at least a portion of the damages suffered by the victim.
Victims of this type of auto accident have several different methods by which they can recover for their loss. The most common and obvious theory of recovery is that the driver was negligent in failing to keep a proper lookout for children in the parking lot. Another potential avenue of proving negligence would be to show that the driver was distracted by something such as a radio, mobile phone, or other individual which prevented her from seeing the child. Even in cases, such as the one described above, where it appears that the victim or the victim’s guardian may be primarily or solely responsible for the damages suffered in the accident, persons injured in vehicle accidents would be wise to explore the potential avenues for recovery that may be available to them.
