With the summer temperatures upon us, many in Tennessee will take advantage of going for a swim to cool down. However, what some may not realize is just how dangerous pools are for children and adults. In fact, drowning is the fifth leading cause of accidental death in the U.S.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, on average, 10 people die a day in a drowning accident. Of those 10, two are children under the age of 14.
When talking about drowning, naturally some questions will come to mind surrounding liability. For example, what if the drowning was caused by something outside of swimming ability? Can a pool manufacturer be held liable? Or what if swimming ability did play a role? Can a homeowner still be held responsible?
When it comes to swimming pool liability, it really all does depend on what happened.
For example, let's say a child becomes stuck underwater due to a faulty drain. In these types of cases, it may end up being argued that the manufacturer of the pool -- or the drain -- should be held liable for building a product with an unsafe drain.
Of course though, there are cases where a drowning occurs due to a lack of supervision or a homeowner not taking reasonable care to secure their pool area.
For example, let's say a neighbor down the street has a swimming pool. Around that swimming pool is a fence. However, the fence is never locked and the neighborhood kids know this. If a child ends up wandering in there and drowns, one could possibly argue the homeowner should be held responsible for not taking reasonable measures to secure the pool.
Along these same lines, one may also be able to argue the owner knew about the fence not being locked and children using his pool, but did nothing to solve the problem. Again, if this is the case, this homeowner may end up facing a lawsuit for having an improperly secured swimming pool.
In the end though, as one can see, there is no one-size-fits-all approach when talking about swimming pool accidents and liability. Rather, liability is dependent on the specifics of the drowning.