Another personal injury firm was retained in a case where a 14-year-old mentally challenged student was in a swimming pool at school. While there, she had a seizure and drowned. The other firm reviewed the police report and concluded that the school was not liable for the girl’s death. However, that firm then provided our client with bad legal advice, telling the father that he had two years from the date of his daughter’s death within which to file a lawsuit. That advice was erroneous, because the statute of limitations against this particular defendant was only one year.
The client came to see us about fourteen months after his daughter’s death. Our investigation disclosed that the statement to the police that there were four teachers monitoring the pool from four stations on the deck of the pool was incorrect. In reality, there was only one person supposedly watching ten students. That teacher has since testified that she saw the daughter stiffen up, as though having a seizure. Instead of calling for help or providing help for the girl, the teacher turned to check up on the status of another student. The other student had a soiled diaper and was being attended to by two other teachers. In the interim, our client’s daughter went on to have a seizure and then drowned.
Our case was originally dismissed for legal reasons. We went to the appellate court and obtained a reversal of that dismissal and reinstatement of our client’s case. The Illinois Supreme Court refused a further appeal. The case was settled for an amount which must remain confidential at the insistence of the Defendant.