Child injured in Furniture Shop

Went shopping last week for new furniture with family including 4 year old child.

Child went to open wardrobe door and it toppled over on him. Turns out it was off balance and on unstable floor.
Young lad spent a week in hospital with pelvis broken in two places - hopefully he'll make a full recovery.

I'm not into money grabbing big compensation claims and am aware I need to see a solicitor sooner rather than later but....
what really bugs(understatement!!) me is that the same wardrobe is still on the shop floor and still in a dangerous position to injure some one else.
I rang the Health & Safety Authority to be told that they are mainly concerned with employee safety but if I want I can lodge a complaint and they will ring the shop to find out whats happening.

Any advice about where I should go from here 'cos it's just not good enough.

johnflan said:

Any advice about where I should go from here 'cos it's just not good enough.

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The [broken link removed] and/or a solicitor?

Update: sorry - just noticed that you already mentioned the HSA...

That is outrageous. As a parent I am appalled. Does the manager/ owner know of the accident? Is this part of a chain ( complain to head office) or a private one-off retail outlet?

As a solicitor, if the wardrobe is still in the same location take the opportunity to go in and take some photos- or better still ( and important for any court case or settlement negotiations), have your solicitor instruct an engineer to inspect the scene of the accident and take photos. Remember that even if its still in the same location now, they may change it shortly and may very well change it before the engineer comes ( the engineer will have to get permission to inspect) so taking some photos now yourself may help.

Its an independent one-off unit. The owner even came to the hospital to visit.

Can I go in and take photos and what is my position if they ask me to stop.

If they ask you to stop, then stop. Chances are you'll have taken a few photos before they approach you anyway. It will probably be difficult to properly photograph the unlevel ground, but in any case, it is probably permanent ( ?) so an engineer will be able to assess it later even if the wardrobe is moved.

As a parent of an older child and not having the patience any more for younger children, why do you let your children run around and open the wardrobes in the first place?? I know what it's like with kids but I never let my son loose in a shop and hate it now when I'm shopping and see kids running around without much parental control. To be fair, a furniture shop is not a suitable place to bring your child.

ribena said:

a furniture shop is not a suitable place to bring your child.

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Disagree. A furniture shop should not be any more dangerous than the average house.

Ribena,

What is wrong with a child opening a wardrobe in a furniture shop? A wardrobe has a door, it is meant to be opened. The OP doesn't state it specifically but it could have been a childs wardrobe that fell over.

I take your point about children running riot and out of control ie jumping on beds / off bunks running / throwing etc - children should be kept under supervision but I would expect any furniture in a furniture shop to act as it's supposed to. What if a child sat on a chair and it collapsed? Is that the childs fault ?

Surely it is reasonable for articles of furniture to operate as expected in a furniture shop and not fall over!

Ribena, many thanks for the lecture - if I wanted a lecture I could have went elsewhere but I posted on AAM to get the opinion of contributors as to what I should do.

The child was NOT running around the shop - he was with my wife - he opened the wardrobe door just like any adult would have done.

You're comment about a furniture shop not being the right place to bring a child is really helpful to me and the issue I raised.

John I've obviously offended you and for that I'm sorry. So many people do let their children run around shops and I find it very annoying. Obviously this is not the case with you and I am truly sorry that your child injured himself, please don't take it that I was being hard-nosed cow on that front, it's just the general lack of control a lot of parents have in a non-child orientated environment. I spent the weekend with a friend whose 2 kids who ran riot everywhere we went and wrecked my head so I'm on a "children should be kept under control when out" frame of mind at the moment.

As for whether you should take photos or not of the incident, I would think you should do it immediately regardless of whether you are going to take any further action as the shop owners will more than likely move it straight away if the HSA do get on to them. An Engineer would have to inspect the locus of the accident if you want to make a claim and usually it would be your Solicitor who would appoint the Engineer.

Have you called the Joe Duffy show ? They'd really go to town on yahoos like that

johnflan said:

I'm not into money grabbing big compensation claims...

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IMHO the HSA are hapless and you should just dismiss talk of whether the child should be running around, or indeed Joe Duffy. I think you should claim compensation on behalf of your child. Given that they have not taken remedial steps since your child's incident, paying compensation may be the only thing that gets them pay attention to safety issues. I have no time for fraudulent or exaggerated claims however your child's case sounds genuine and genuinely painful. I believe that genuine claims are essential otherwise shop owners, local authorities etc will pay less attention to safety making commercial and public areas potentially more dangerous.

I had a very frightening experience many years ago in a large chain store in Dublin. My son (then aged 2), was WALKING beside me, hand in hand, when he came into contact with the end of a sharp metal clothes rail. It was the little metal bit that prevents the hangers from falling off. It was exactly at his eyeline (holding slippers or something -- can't remember). He got it straight in the eye and when I looked his eye was a lump of jelly!! He was screaming, I was in shock, and in fact I was so upset I carried him and ran out of the shop just shouted something to the girl on the till on my way out and went straight to hospital. He spent some time in the Eye and Ear with a very bad corneal tear. He was very fortunate that his eyesight was not affected. I returned to the store the next day and they were quite unapologetic, almost disbelieving. I insisted that they paid for his medical expenses and they did so without prejudice. I was more concerned that they alter their clothes rail so this would not happen again, but you know what, 17 years later the same clothes rails are being used, at the same height as a small child. Some of these places are just leaving themselves open for litigation, why can't they learn from near misses?

Well... there is only so much you can do, there's no such thing as a totally safe environment (e.g. a kid could pull down a couple of bottles of wine in any supermarket and injure himself). In this case I suppose if you had sued they probably would have stopped using those racks.