Trapping a part of your body in a door is a lot more painful than you would think; sometimes it can even lead to amputations. Unfortunately, it seems that many children tend to suffer from these types of accidents whilst at school and as the doors in schools tend to be fire doors they are incredibly heavy and can cause a serious injury.
The first thing to point out, with these types of claims, is that they’re not easy to win unfortunately. It is only in specific circumstances where we may be able to assist clients in these type of claims on a No Win No Fee basis. When making a claim for personal injury there has to be certain prerequisites these are:
- There must have been a duty of care owed to you by the defendant (i.e. the school)
- This duty must have been breached
- This breach must have caused the accident / injuries
Therefore, in circumstances where an actual duty cannot be inferred making a claim for personal injury can be incredibly difficult. For example: just because somebody may have not held the door open for a child and this has caused them to get themselves trapped this may not entitle you to claim as it is arguable that there is no general duty on someone to hold a door open.
Claims that may succeed mainly include an aspect of damage; by this I mean that the door mechanism is defective meaning that the door for example may have shut unexpectedly on the child. The school will arguable always be under a duty to ensure their premises are safe for children (you would certainly hope so!) and therefore if a door has been left in disrepair and consequently causes an accident – it is arguable that the duty have been breached and this breach has directly caused an injury.
Other examples include a door completely coming off its hinges; there is something sharp sticking off or a panel missing for example. As you can see, these all center on damage rather than a duty of another individual being involved.
Of course, we are not saying that in every circumstance will you be unable to claim, it’s just that it can be very difficult and therefore it is important to gather as much information as possible and speak with a personal injury specialist. After all, these injuries can be incredibly debilitating and if it happens to a child it may be something that affects them later on in life.
*Please note for minor cases, someone will have to be nominated to be the litigation friend to run the claim on their behalf- this is due to the fact that a minor is unable to commence legal proceedings.
