A Child Injures My Child; Do I Sue Him or His Parents?

If you are a parent, having your child embroiled in a dispute or fight with another child can feel like a difficult situation to navigate. 

You cannot help but be concerned of the well-being of your child. When something challenges that notion, your parental instincts shoots up in order to protect your child. 

While you might find yourself caught in the heat of the moment—you could be pointing fingers at another for causing harm or even injury to your child—there are certain rules to follow when trying to seek a remedy to the situation.

What happens then if the situation involves an injury of your child and all you can think of is to take things to court? 

Can you sue a child for injury to your own child? 

You can only sue child X and not child X’s parents except under certain circumstances. As a general rule, a parent is not liable for the wrongful actions committed by his or her child.

A parent is only liable for his child’s wrongful actions if the parent has himself been guilty of negligence, for example, by failing to exercise proper supervision of his child. Let’s apply these principles to a specific scenario:

1. 1. Parent X hands child X a knife. Parent X does not exercise proper supervision of child X. This results in child X injuring your child. It is in such a situation that parent X is guilty of negligence and may be liable for the wrongful action of child X. Thus, you may be able to sue parent X for the harm caused by child X to your child as a result of parent X’s negligence
   2. Unknown to parent X, child X takes a knife from the kitchen. Child X injures your child in the absence of parent X. In such a situation, parent X is not guilty of negligence as parent X was not present to exercise proper supervision of child X. Parent X is not liable for the wrongful action of child X. Thus, you may not be able to sue parent X for the harm caused by child X to your child.

We hope this information has been useful to you in ascertaining who can be held responsible for the committed wrongdoing to your child, if any.

This article was re-published with permission from SingaporeLegalAdvice. The information provided above does not constitute legal advice. You should obtain specific legal advice from a lawyer before taking any legal action. Although we try our best to ensure the accuracy of the information on this website, you rely on it at your own risk.

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