The summer season is right around the corner, which means plenty of days spent in the pool, the ocean, the lake and other bodies of water. Safety around water is important to having a fun outing with the family. Accidents do happen and a person, especially a child, can drown in minutes. If the drowning was the fault of someone else, it's possible that you could file a wrongful death claim.
For a wrongful death claim to occur in a drowning case, legal liability will have to have been present. When this happens, it doesn't necessarily mean that someone meant for the victim to drown. It just means that legal liability was not met in some way, leading to the drowning.
When the negligence or recklessness of another person caused the drowning death of a loved one, wrongful death lawsuits can be filed. This can be due to another person causing the drowning or the person responsible for the body of water acting negligently or recklessly in operating the area. In turn, their behavior, or lack of behavior, caused the drowning.
If the operator of a swimming pool failed to maintain the pool, and this failure to maintain it caused the drowning, the operator of the pool could be held liable for the victim's death. If a pool was protected by lifeguards, and one of them failed to protect the swimmers due to their behavior, the operator of the pool could be held liable for the death.
Drowning accidents also occur when boats, jet skis, waverunners and other watercraft are involved. These accidents can happen by the fault of no one, or because of the negligence of another person. When the operator of a watercraft causes an accident that results in a drowning, he or she can be held liable.
Did you lose a loved one to drowning? A wrongful death attorney in Nashville, Tennessee, can answer all of your questions and advise you of your rights.
Source: FindLaw, "Drowning," accessed May 11, 2017