CHILD INJURIES

Personal injuries sustained by children or minors under that age of majority (18 years of age in Minnesota) involve special legal requirements and special attention. The Schmidt-Salita Law Team lawyers have many years of experience in successfully handling injury claims for children and minors.

Because children/minors are not recognized in the law as having “legal capacity”, any personal injury claim for a minor must be prosecuted by the parents or a court-appointed “guardian ad litem”.

Personal injury claims involve many of the same considerations as an injury to an adult but involve completely different considerations in the settlement of these claims.

The special rules applying to settlement of child/minor claims involve these:

(A) Any settlement must be approved by a Judge;
(B) The settlement can be used to pay the medical bills of the child and, subject to the approval of a Judge, the remainder must be held in a court-supervised account until it is released to the minor when the minor reaches the age of majority.
(C) Before the minor comes of age, any withdrawals from the Court-supervised funds must be approved by the Judge;
(D) A Judge may approve of the investment of all or a part of the settlement proceeds in a “structured settlement”. (See our practice area regarding structured settlements.