any leagal people out there?

Iamthesmartestmanalive

jpwhittle wrote: »

1 you are obviously not the smartest man alive

2 my child can and does behave

3 they were not cleaning this was a shop product that had been opened and left lying around

4 children do look at things and sometimes pick things up are you actually a parent or just a no it all ponce that thinks hes something special.

5 my child is 2 and is supervised to the best of my ability. i cant have eyes in the back of my head and sometimes need to look at something.

6 he couldnt have got electricuted as nothing was plugged in.

7 i did not throw a hissy fit i stood by what i ahd to say and im allowed to be annoyed at what happened.

seriously come back when you have a child that was nearly blinded and you have grown up a bit. you really need to ge of that high horse your not perfect yourself.

dont you dare judge me on something out of my controll and make out i have no controll over my child, im a bad mother or that my child is a monster.

Seriously get a grip

Knowing the child was 2 I have even more disregard for you

A 2 year old should not have had the opportunity to do this, you left a 2 year old unsupervised and you are to blame

If it was an older child fair enough but a 2 year old should never be out of your sight and dont give me the crap about eyes in the back of your head

You are to blame, no one else

niceguyed

Iamthesmartestmanalive wrote: »

You really are something

You come on trying to blame someone for your neglience and because people quite rightly told you to behave you threw a hissy fit

You were in a shop with lots of electrical equipment etc, the fact your child managed to spray themself is concerning and its just luck they didnt electrocute themselves

Its common place for companies to combine cleaning with roles and they may regularly leave the materials behind whilst assisting someone

They shouldnt be liable for children who cant behave or are left to misbehave

Your child should never have a) done it or b) got the opportunity to do it

Im intrigued to know how old this child is too

I think people have said all they have to say but feel you are making some harsh inferences. Surely we can all remember being little and getting into scrapes, are we to say they are all a result of bad parenting? Accidents do happen and we could spend all day making an argument as to whose fault it was and apportion blame. Frankly a somewhat pointless exercise and I for one find some of the keyboard warrior types on here rather tiresome. I do empathise with the OP in that the store was clearly not being COSHH compliant and wish junior whittle a speedy recovery.

Tao81

Go away iam, you TROLL!

Pauline...........Ignore him/her/It!:p
Don't rise to it Pleeease?......That's what Trolls are out to do, get the better of them by not engaging with their cr*ppy made up opinions, only way is to leave them to wind themselves up and not others!
Seen lots of this happen in real life and once you disengage they are left like wasps in a jam jar, because by removing yourself from the game you have denied them access to their toy(s).....Ha, Ha:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

Anyhoo, hope you're feeling less shocked and more settled this morning and Junior Whittle is his normal happy chappies self!.....Have an excellent troll-free day!

Luv n Stuff xx

Margaret54

Hello i just wanted to say as a Mum of 6 children(all adults now) and Granny of 2 we do not have eyes in the back of our heads and no matter how good a parent there will always be something. I am shocked at how some people have treated you here, and i just wanted to say i hope your child recovers soon and that you are feeling better soon too. It was obvious ly very distressing for you. Best wishes and hugs xoxo to you both

Fleago

jpwhittle wrote: »

3 they were not cleaning this was a shop product that had been opened and left lying around

This must have been a very upsetting experience for you, jpwhittle and I hope that your little one is now feeling better. However, the above makes me wonder a bit about Comet's liability.

If it was a product Comet sells, then surely it is likely to have been a customer who opened it for some reason and left it lying about? The trouble in this scenario, if I am presuming correctly, is that there is no way of knowing how soon before your little one picked up the spray that this had been done. One would hope that Comet's staff are dilligent and would notice something like this, but if it is had been done only a short time before, a member of staff may not have seen it.

I'm not a legal bod though, so I have no idea if such a situation would be Comet's fault, but a letter to them outlining the scenario and asking them to ensure that staff are vigilant would seem to me to be the way to go.

Best wishes,

Fleago

chipmunk

jpwhittle, I'm sorry to hear that your child suffered from this incident and I hope he is now OK, although as someone else said, whatever the circumstances this was allowed to happen, he has now surely learnt a very important lesson. Understandably, you were very upset at the time.

However, I also do not completely understand what you expect from this unfortunate incident. If you are not looking for "compo" as you call it, why do you ask in the thread title "any leagle (sp) people out there?" Why does it need to be someone with legal knowledge if you do not intend this to become a court case.

I'm sorry if you truly are not looking for a monetary recompense but you cannot blame people for thinking that you are - "i just wondered where i stood legally with this if i dont get the adequate response from comet".

You say this was a shop product, i.e. an item for sale in the shop. How do you know it was a staff member who opened the product and left it lying around. It could have been another 2-year old child who's mother had taken her eye off him for a "second". Shop staff cannot be expected to follow around every person who enters their shop with a child just to make sure they don't interfere with hazardous goods that may be on their shelves and, from experience, these type of stores are usually very busy.

No-one can watch their child every second of every day but perhaps when out shopping, you could keep hold of his hand so that he can't pick up things he shouldn't.

I think that you should just accept that the accident happened and be thankful that your child only suffered minor injuries. I am sure the Comet staff will be extra vigilent from now in ensuring this does not happen again.

Once again, I hope your little boy is feeling better now.

P.S. Whilst I was typing this, Fleago posted saying much the same thing as me - sorry Fleago, didn't mean to plagiarise !:D

jpwhittle

yes i agree the title is wrong im definatly not after compensation just more care in future. after calming down io can see this could have been a customer that had done this. i did have hold of his hand but accidents happen unfortunatly. i am just glad the doctor could say hes a very lucky boy.
on calming down i will just write a letter to comet stating what happened and that will be the end of it. yes the origanal post was a little harsh but as most have understood its frightening when your child gets hurt like this.
thankyou for your posts and help.

Willman_Rodders

Hi Jpwhittle,

I trust your child is showing no serious adverse effects from yesterday's incident.

Just reveiwing the responses from the posts you have received you will notice that in all but two cases they were supportive of you. Only 'I am the smartest man alive' (who has repeated his message 4 times) and to a lesser extent 'ejoness999' expressing a viewpoint that possibly you did not wish to read. (I have always found ejoness999 posts helpful and well balanced - and here perhaps is the first problem with this type of communication; the written word can be interpreted differently by different readers - depending upon the reader's feeling and viewpoint. ejones999 response was [I think] helpful, suggesting that as things have turned out he recommended you not spend too much time dwelling on what might have been - but move on.

It is possible that ejones999 misinterpreted your original post, and you then misinterpreted his - and so the post is highjacked to a debate around parenting skills rather than avoiding a possible duplication of the events that occurred yesterday.

When I was an administration manager of a large high street bank I had to ensure that if it rained outside a member of my staff put out in the public space a bright yellow sign ... 'Care - Slippery Surface'. If you walked into the Bank you could see the floor was wet and yet the sign had to be displayed. Why? Bacause whilst the public would have known that it was wet outside they would also have expected the Bank to have a floor that was not slippery in the wet. The floor was not as they would have expected, and therefore they could have sued the bank had they fallen over.

Painters and decoraters put big signs up to say 'wet paint'. Why? You can see the paint is wet; and you can smell it. It's because they [the painters] know that if you lean against the paint and it damages your clothes you will complain; you expect the paint to be dry, or alternatively to be advised/notified that the paint is wet.

If you take your children to the local playground you expect your children to be able to play safely - providing they use the facilities in the manner expected. You do not expect to have to go around undertaking a full structural inspection of each piece of apparatus - because that aspect is the local council's responsibility - just a cursory check to make sure things look OK is what is expected of you as a parent.

On the otherhand if you took your child to a scrap yard and he/she was hurt you would have very little to complain about; scrapyards are dangerous places for adults, let alone children. Indeed accusations of poor parenting would (probably) then be justified.

Why do I mention these points? To show that there is a duty of care from both sides; you as a parent, and the provider of any facilities.

As a parent I know just how difficult it is to watch children; you have to assess the environment and make a decision. If I was walking around a supermarket, and down the cleaning isle especially, I'd have my children firmly under control. If I was going around Comet I would not expect my child to be able to touch any cleaning material. I doubt many parents would.

Comet is a shop that encourages families to enter its premises; it has a duty of care to those visitors (whatever age) to provide a safe environment for its customers. You, as a parent, have an obligation to ensure your child behaves reasonably. If your child was running around and crashed into a TV then you will have failed in your duty of care; indeed the shop could probably sue you if the TV was damaged. If a TV fell on a customer because it was not secured properly (or as in the case of our local bedroom/kitchen store where a whole dividing wall fell on an unsuspecting customer! Funny for those watching, not so funny for their customer) then the shop will have failed in its duty of care.

So, whilst I am no solicitor, you may have a claim against Comet for breach of duty of care.

Would I sue? No. As ejones999 has said if your child is OK do not dwell on the case more than you have to; life is too short.

Would I take any action? Yes. For all we know this might be a one-off event; or it could be an accident waiting to happen - but next time with more serious consequences.

So how to move matters forward...

As has been stated earlier in this thread you do need to decide to what level you really want to escalate this to. If you are simply looking for an apology, and reassurance that this will not be allowed to happen again then I would suggest the following:-

Your child's accident, by law, needs to be entered into Comet's Accident Book. No if's or but's; that is the law. Approach Comet, probably in person is best, for the entry to be made. This will also provide some protection for your child in that if he does suffer an adverse reaction in due course then the supporting evidence (that the original accident happened on Comet's premises) will be logged at Comet.

This will 1. give Comet your personal details. They can then send you a measured response - this may be compensation, or just a letter of apology, or maybe no response at all (but at least they know where to contact you); and 2. allow Comet to look at its policies and procedures, and compensation policy.

For all you know a member of the branch staff may have already been dismissed last night for negligence/breach of company rules, and have spent the night worrying that they have, through a simple mistake/oversight, blinded some child; they will be relieved to hear that in fact your child is OK.

I cannot remember the reporting rules for incidents of this nature but once the entry is in the Accident Book Comet will then need to ensure the accident is not repeated - thus they will tighten up their policies and procedures.

A good shop/retail manager will also take the opportunity to apologise, and review their options re compensation for your inconvenience, loss of time, damage to their reputation etc

If you want to demand compensation (as opposed to accepting anything offered) then you will need to be clear what you want; again when working in the Bank I used to offer compensation to those customers who had clearly lost out as a result of an error/process failure. But if a client demanded compensation I'd stand my ground; there were very few cases where compensation was actually trully justified other than as a jesture of goodwill.

I hope the above helps.

jpwhittle

thankyou for your reply. i am just going to send in a letter saying what happened and asking for an apology i dont want it going any further im not that kind of person and certainly didnt want anyone sacked. i just dont want it happening to someone elses child and them, having worst case senario.
Noah is fine and thats whats important he just has some puffiness and rashing due to the reaction but at least its just that and nothing over serious.
thankyou

Clive_Woody

While this thread has raised a few smiles, hopefully both Comet and this child's mother have learned some valuable lessons to ensure we do not hear of a repeat of this incident.