Cop who fell on the job sues family of baby who almost drowned

Source: Orlando Sentinel

CASSELBERRY - In January, 1-year-old Joey Cosmillo wandered into the backyard and fell into the family pool. When his mother hauled him out, he wasn't breathing. Rescuers were able to bring him back to life, but he suffered severe brain damage and cannot walk, talk or even swallow.

Now, his family faces another burden: One of the rescuers, Casselberry police Sgt. Andrea Eichhorn, is suing, alleging the family left a puddle of water on the floor that afternoon, causing her to slip and fall.

The boy's grandparents, named in the suit, are mystified and angry.

"The loss we've suffered, and she's seeking money?" said Richard Cosmillo, 69, the boy's grandfather. "Of course there's going to be water in the house. He was sopping wet when we brought him in."

Read more: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/seminole/orl-mdrown1007oct10,0,7318452.story?coll=orl_tab01_layout

---

Isn't there an assumption of risk when you're a police officer? This family has been devastated by this tragedy, now they have to deal with a lawsuit on top of it. Even the police chief urged the officer not to file a lawsuit.

"Eichhorn arrived a few minutes later. As she stepped into the room where rescuers were working on the boy, she slipped and went down on one knee, then stood back up, according to Richard Cosmillo.

Later that day, she went to an emergency care center and eventually to an orthopedist, according to her attorney, David Heil.

While she was on medical leave, Pavlis said, the city's insurer paid her medical bills and provided disability checks.

Eichhorn, a 12-year department veteran, would not discuss the suit. Her attorney said those benefits, paid by the city's workers' compensation carrier, were not enough. The suit seeks an unspecified amount of money.

Eichhorn, he said, is a victim. Her knee aches, and she will likely develop arthritis.

If the Cosmillos had made their pool baby-proof, police would not have been called to the scene, there would have been no water on the floor, and Eichhorn would not have hurt herself, he said.

"It's a situation where the Cosmillos have caused these problems, brought them on themselves, then tried to play the victim," he said.

This lawsuit is b.s. and the kind of thing that gives lawyers a bad name.

Bake

Can you imagine a fireman saying: "It's their fault for building a house made of wood. If it'd been made of concrete blocks and wouldn't have caught on fire so I'd have to come rescue them."

could have been avoided.

Look for her on KO this evening.

The lawsuit is invalid as far as I am concerned.

Seriously, are there very many cases at all of police officers suing when they are injured in the line of duty? For all this woman knows, if she hadn't been dispatched to this family's house, she could have been dispatched to another call where she could have been shot or even killed.

Usually it is traffic accidents.

cant wait to see if he gets Worst Person In The World or she does.

those 300-pound-plus patients who caused me mucho back strain, or those post-op-psychosis or dementia patients who clawed and punched me, or the lady who jerked away while I was administering an injection and caused me to needle-stick myself with her Hepatitis-C covered needle? Who would have ever expected that some professions have hazards? :sarcasm:

1) have a better case.
2) not be granted diability compensation from your hospital or workmans comp from the state.

Nurses are routinely screwed more in this are than are police and fireman-even though they may face the same or greater danger.

...away from a suicidal person? Good thing she didn't cut herself or else that person would have gotten served as well.

I have a quick answer.

If a lawsuit is found to be frivolous by a judge and/or jury, the party responsible for said frivolous case should be liable for all court and lawyer costs on both sides. That way you don't have to worry about our venerable government legislating the problem in such a way that it protects the corporations and impedes legitimate lawsuits from proceeding.

This case could be a decent test case on how to define a frivolous lawsuit. I definitely think that there should be clear and fair guidelines on what defines a frivolous lawsuit. Wait, I said clear and fair, that's not allowed in any of our bureaucracy's.

The summary judgment process is specifically there to get rid of baseless claims. If a defendant prevails on summary judgment, they can then move to recover fees and costs. If a case does go to trial and a defendant prevails, they can also then move to recover fees and costs.

Don't get sucked into the "evil trial lawyer" bullshit, because our system already has safeguards in place to deal with idiot cases like this one. I suspect they'll lose miserably on a motion to dismiss or motion for summary judgment.

You don't know how much she's asking for and what the reasons are that she's requesting it.

And you didn't know that there are standards for frivolous lawsuits as well as redress for victims of frivolous lawsuits so they can get their defensive legal fees repaid.

Like many posts here in this thread, people are speaking out of a fair amount of ignorance of the processes and rights involved here.

Because it's more fun to find a villain.

Where were you people when the guy was hit by the truck and the bystanders stole his groceries, leaving him there to die? Where was your vitriol then? It might have been useful and inassailable then, but not here not for the reasons stated so far.

Lots of sarcasm in my original post (maybe I should start using that sarcasm emoticon), and I always forget that people don't always read between the lines (mostly because I don't want to spend all day typing). Anyways - I know there are safeguards, it was more a comment on the attempts of our government to enact tort reform laws and that they are not needed in the incarnation that is currently being pushed - I could have alluded to that a bit better. As for the test case peice - I mentioned that it could be a case for a definition because it seems to be on the border between a frivolous and legitimate case from the info I could glean by reading the article.

My ultimate feeling is that the water on the floor was not due to any gross negligence on the home-owners part. If you are responding to a call for a possible drowning (cop, paramedic, fireman), you should resonably expect to encounter water and wet surfaces.

And I thought I'd heard it all.

She will be harassed by the public and ostracized at her job and my guess is that she will go ahead and drop it. Or it will be dismissed at the first court appearance. She is an idiot, her lawyer is a bigger idiot, and I cannot believe that this police force even wants her anymore after this. Perhaps she will be encouraged to "retire" very soon.

why this person was able to do this? isn't this paramedic employee of a town? the town should not let this happen. thisis horrible.

She's a cop. And I doubt the town can stop her from filing personal injury lawsuits against private citizens.

This isn't just your average eye-rolling, frivolous slip-and-fall lawsuit against some corporate entity. This is a frivolous lawsuit against a family who have suffered a tragedy. The puddle of water that caused this woman to slip and crack her knee resulted from the little boy's near drowning -- an incident that left him with permanent and severe brain damage.

Eichhorn has been provided for. Her medical bills have been paid. She isn't languishing somewhere without the treatment and worker's compensation that she was owed, or anything like that. So why the hell would she sue, let alone sue the boy's family? Why would anyone?


:wow:


Real downer of a story.

arguably resulted from the parents' negligence. It's one of those things homeowners' insurance is purchased to cover, and why your rates go up when you have a pool installed. I have to imagine the lawsuit is to force the negligent family's insurance to pay up. Distasteful, certainly, but possibly also the only way to get the insurer to live up to its responsibility.

What if the injured person had been a neighbor instead of a public servant? What if the injury was massive head trauma instead of a wrenched knee? Compensation for injury due to another party's negligence is a good thing. Just distasteful in this instance.

:cry:

But the emotional reaction to this case should not blind people to the fact that sometimes people who enter our homes are injured, and the homeowners insurance we shell out for every month ought rightly to perform its stated function when those events occur. If the lawsuit is necessary to make that happen, then it is necessary.

just sayin'...

As a sworn police officer, her job requires and expects her to take certain inherent risks to her health, safety and even life. If this is allowed to go forward, any cop anywhere who walks into any home in the line of duty and gets so much as a paper cut could sue afterward. This is absurd reasoning.

whether or not that person is entitled to compensation when s/he is harmed by another person's negligence? What if the cable guy slips on a similar puddle of water in someone's house and breaks his neck? Should he not be entitled to compensation? His career choice, after all, led him to be in the house with the water hazard...

If you fix air conditioners on roofs, you are required to take the risk of working on roofs. If you fall, you are entitled to various things in response and including the right to sue.

Thanks to our health insurance system, there's this nasty little surprise for many people who get hurt and find their health insurance or disability insurance will not pay (or workers comp is not enough)

THIRD PARTY LIABILITY

Thus, if you get hurt and someone else could possibly foot the bill, your insurer will refuse to pay on the grounds that it is not THEIR responsibility.

As a peon in the grand scheme of things, you are forced to sue them (even if you don't want to) or be saddled with perhaps unaffordable expenses or lack of livelihood all so that your insurer doesn't pay and their insurer does pay.

There was a case like this where a child sued a parent for being injured at their house and people beat the crap out of this person (well, online) for suing the parent, but neglected to account for the third party liability loophole that people find themselves stuck with medical bills their health insurer simply will not pay.

I worked for Kaiser, I know about this stuff.

Tough shit. The kid is a vegetable and her knee hurts. Too frigging bad. She should walk away and count her blessings, not to mention, she needs to find another job that doesn't require that she do things like wrestle boxes of razor blades away from someone or work as a prostitute lure to bust johns. Or go into houses where children have nearly drowned and the floor got wet because of it.

She has a legal right to do this and if it is unfounded or for an outlandish amount, then I'm more likely to sympathize with you, but people are hurt on the job all the time, they face losses of income, medical bills and so forth and sometimes, they need to get insurance money to cover those things, and you can't usually get that insurance money without lawsuit --that is what the system is for.

You are just so wrong, it's incredible.

I can just bet that if it were YOU on the end of this tragedy and lawsuit you would be singing another tune. I hope you never need to call a cop to come into your home, cause if they get hurt, even slightly, you will be liable for their injuries.

Yeah, I would hope not to be sued, but if they were injured, I hardly expect them to suck it up and bite the bullet and "get over it".

Nice compassion folks.

Her kids go hungry to save an insurance company a few bucks?

that the city's insurer PAID her medical bills and disability payments.

"While she was on medical leave, Pavlis said, the city's insurer paid her medical bills and provided disability checks."

The plaintiff is saying that it was "not enough".

Now, if it was not enough to let her buy a boat and slip in Ft. Lauderdale, then i would agree with you.

But if "not enough" means that her disability check is less than her regular paycheck (she only makes 48k/yr), then it may not be enough for her to live on). Second, they may have paid her medical bills, but she may have had a share. Third, she may have ongoing medical bills which aren't covered, remember the article refers to bills in the past tense, not future tense --a wrenched knee may cost her her job and keep her out of work for a period of time if it requires surgery later.

Fourth, if she has lost "function" due to an injury and that affects her gainful employment then she may not have much recourse. She may have little kids to provide for, parents to provide for and from everything in the article, it sounds like she is an outstanding police officer, but you wouldn't dare give her any bit of the doubt. No, no, you are the expert here.

I think you should take a hike instead of the leap that you took.

No precedent should be set over this. If it is, I hope your house never catches on fire or your spouse has a heart attack at home, cause IF the responders happen to get injured while at your house then they can sue you and win. It's their JOB to take risks.

That's the law now. If they get hurt in my house, if anybody gets hurt in my house, I can be sued.

This lawsuit sets no precedent.

I don't see why doing a risky job for relatively low pay considering should require you to give up legal avenues afterwards.

If a firefighter were injured responding to a fire and the fire was started by a meth lab, shouldn't he be able to sue for lost wages, etc.? This is not that instance, but she was injured nevertheless.

But nowhere does it say that they are not entitled to compensation same as anyone else in the event they are injured. Looks like people are letting the emotional reaction "oh noes! vegetative baby! distraught parents! and now lawsuit!" get in the way of rational thought. If a police officer breaks her ankle walking up my front steps because I left a tread loose, you can be assured that my homeowners insurance would be required to pay for that officer's treatment.

Because a child was horifically disabled on the premises or because you were "less" injured than other people at the scene.

Give me a break.

Beam me up. (excepting you and a few others of course...)

It is the rule in most states. A firefighter cannot sue an owner of property for fire related damages (smoke inhalation, the roof falling in, etc.)

They can sue only for wilful or intentional acts that cause injuries, usually.

It is often applied to other public safety professionals.

Idiot.

should have put up a fence, and/or watched the baby. Idiots.

Fun how it works both ways, eh?

At least the kid has an excuse.

Civil servant idiot.

And thank you! The only aside I'll offer is that in this case, the dumb parents are probably legally liable for the dumb civil servant's injuries.

And I would think it's a pretty decent comp. claim. But suing the child's grandparents??? WTF.

is not so much the lawsuit but how could any parent turn their back for even a minute on a one year old when there is a pool in the backyard. One year olds are not the best walkers/runners. Is anything being done so this doesn't happen again?

this would NOT be an issue.

All of her medical care would be covered...

No need to fight for workman's comp medical reimbursements...


"Eichhorn, a 12-year department veteran, would not discuss the suit. Her attorney said those benefits, paid by the city's workers' compensation carrier, were not enough. The suit seeks an unspecified amount of money.

Eichhorn, he said, is a victim. Her knee aches, and she will likely develop arthritis.

If the Cosmillos had made their pool baby-proof, police would not have been called to the scene, there would have been no water on the floor, and Eichhorn would not have hurt herself, he said.

"It's a situation where the Cosmillos have caused these problems, brought them on themselves, then tried to play the victim," he said."

Geez, what a lame ass...

But isn't this a Workers Compensation claim, for on the job injury? Isn't it your department you sue?