Who pays for injury from home inspection tour?

Question: We signed the standard Arizona Association of Realtors purchase contract to buy a vacant home in Goodyear. During the 10-day home inspection period we opened a closet door and an ironing board fell out and struck our 8-year-old daughter on the side of her face.

At the emergency room our daughter had 14 stitches and will probably have permanent scarring. Our Realtor contacted the sellers’ Realtor, and the sellers claim that the ironing board did not belong to the sellers. My husband’s medical insurance canceled when we moved, so we had to pay the emergency room medical bills ourselves.

Our concern is who pays the cost of the plastic surgery to minimize our daughter’s permanent scarring? Does the seller have any liability for our daughter’s current and future medical bills when we have no proof that the ironing board even belonged to the sellers?

Answer: Probably. Under the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur (“the thing speaks for itself” in English) an injured person can have a claim for personal injury caused by the negligence of another person if that person had control of the cause of the personal injury. In an Illinois decision, a flowerpot fell from an apartment and the tenant in the apartment was found liable for injuries to a passerby below.

Note: The best and simplest example of res ipsa loquitur is that, after surgery, the patient learns the next day that there will have to be another surgery to remove a forceps left in the surgical area.