A New York state district court judge has ruled that a four-year-old can be sued in a personal injury case. The judge ruled that a four-year-old girl who was accused of hitting an elderly woman with her bike while racing can be sued for negligence. The judge's ruling did not find that the little girl was negligent; it only found that a lawsuit could be filed against her. In this post, we will discuss the events of the accident and the actions of the parties that led to the judge's decision. In our next post, we discuss the judge's ruling itself.

According to the lawsuit that was allowed to proceed, a four-year-old girl and an unrelated four-year-old boy were racing their bicycles in April 2009. The two youngsters were riding their bikes on a sidewalk on East 52nd Street in Manhattan under the supervision of their mothers. The mothers were watching their children from the sidewalk. During the children's bicycle race, an elderly woman who was 87-years-old was walking in front of the building on East 52nd, and the two children struck her while on their bikes.

As a result of the accident, the elderly woman was seriously and severely injured according to the lawsuit. She suffered a hip fracture and the fracture required surgery. Three months later the elderly woman died from unrelated causes. Claiming the children and their mothers had acted negligently at the time of the accident, the elderly woman's estate sued the children and their mothers.

In our next post we will discuss the legal arguments that led to the judge's decision that a four-year-old can be sued in a personal injury case for negligence.

Source: The New York Times, "4-Year-Old Can Be Sued, Judge Rules in Bike Case," Alan Feuer, 10/28/10