For the vast majority of parents, no explanation is needed. When you receive money in a personal injury settlement for injuries your child suffered at birth, that money belongs to your child. It is not money you can simply withdraw at your leisure to spend on whatever you would like. The money is there to compensate your child, not you.
Taking a Child’s Birth Injury Settlement Money is Stealing
However, not every parent follows this simple and obvious maxim. In fact, on occasion, parents of birth injury victims will actually use that money for their own purposes. Although parents may try to justify this behavior in various ways, it is stealing – theft – pure and simple.
According to an article in Injury Lawyer News, a Queens, New York, mother is accused of this exact type of theft. If the accusations are accurate, this woman created falsified court orders in order to obtain more than $65,000 aside for her daughter as a personal injury award for injuries suffered at birth.
The funds were set aside for the young girl – who had suffered a brachial plexus injury that severely limits her ability to use her right arm – to be released to her in structured payments when she reaches 18 years old.
Unfortunately for her, her mother allegedly already took that money out of the bank and used it for her own purposes, including plastic surgery and a trip to Disneyland.
The tragedy is that this girl not only suffered serious birth injuries, but if these allegations are true, she also suffered the theft of her compensation money from her own mother. The mother had to falsify documents and cheat
If you have a child who has suffered injuries at birth as a result of medical malpractice, talk to an experienced attorney who can help you obtain compensation. But parents need to remember the compensation is for their children, not for their parents.