Poisoned! My Fault or Yours?

Unintentional poisonings can lead to negligence suits.

The death of a 13 month-old boy in January of this year in Deer Lake led to a Coroner’s inquest in Powell County. Six months later the verdict is in – a poisoning due to negligence at the hands of the father. The poison? Antifreeze.

The father claims he thought it was green Kool-Aid when he filled the child’s cup with the ‘drink’. The boy died even after all possible measures were taken at Seattle Children’s Hospital. It will be up to a court to decide if the poisoning was criminal or not.

Poisonings, even among adults, are a much more common cause of injury or death than most people would believe. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports (2008) that unintentional poisonings have been trending upward since 1992. Poisonings rank second only to car crashes for causing injury or death in 34 – 55 year olds.

Most common substances in poisoning

For adults, the most common poisonings happen with drugs. Topping the list are illegal drugs, but prescription drugs also contribute. For 2006, there were about two million calls to poison control centers for unintentional poisonings and about 700,000 Emergency Room visits.

Among children under 6, the most common substances found in poisoning are:

• Cosmetics and personal care products
• Pain medications
• Vitamins
• Household cleaners
• Antihistamines and cough/cold syrups
• Plants and mushrooms

So whose fault is it?

When an adult self-administers a toxic amount of a medication trying to high, it is pretty easy to place blame, and no negligence follows from an illegal act – you can’t sue your drug dealer for product liability. On the other hand, if misleading instructions or improper packaging leads to a medication error, the fault usually falls on the supervising medical personnel. They have the expertise and the professional responsibility.

In the case of an adult exposing a child to an accidental poisoning, the circumstances surrounding the incident become critical. Society imposes a duty on adults to prevent foreseeable harm to children. If a home or a business allows children to access poisonous substances, a negligence suit might follow.

Critical to a negligence case is the standard of ‘foreseeable’ or ‘normal care’. We keep dangerous substances in child-proof containers for this reason. In the case from Deer Lake, the antifreeze was in a plain gallon jug and not the original antifreeze container. Who put it there and why? Could it really have been mistaken for green Kool-Aid? These are the types of questions settled in negligence suits.

A two step solution

Parents of toddlers can follow a two-step rule to prevent many poisonings. The first is to take the skills you’ve built up child-proofing your own house with you when you take your child outside of this protected zone. That means visits to Grandma and Grandpa’s house, daycare and other situations where your child will be free to explore. Check out the environment with your ‘educated eyes’ and do not rely on other adults to know the rules.

The second important thing to do is when you and your child are out where you cannot do the first step. If you haven’t certified an environment as poison-proof, direct supervision is your only other option. This means the grocery store (or any store), pubic park (plants and mushrooms), church, or community center.

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