Featured on @StorylineReddit: November 10, 2025
A child climbs a fountain. It tips. There’s blood, a 911 call, and later, an envelope with a court date inside. What might have stayed a bad afternoon between neighbors hardens into paperwork.
This isn’t only about liability. It’s about how quickly concern turns into accusation once injury enters the picture. A yard that felt decorative becomes contested terrain. A decorative object becomes a hazard, depending on who is telling it.
No one denies the child was hurt. The disagreement forms around prevention who was meant to stop it, who should have seen it coming. The judge will decide one part. The street will decide the rest. Some rulings settle facts. They do not always settle distance.
The conflict rests less on the fall itself than on competing definitions of duty. A child climbs a fountain in a neighbor’s front yard and is injured when it topples. The homeowner calls emergency services. Months later, he is sued for medical costs, accused of failing to secure the structure.
In response, he reframes the sequence: private property, visible barriers of rocks and flowers, adhesive reinforcement, and video footage showing several uninterrupted minutes of climbing before the collapse. The evidence becomes central not just to the legal argument, but to how the event is narrated.
In court, the judge sides with the homeowner, finding the fountain reasonably secured and the supervision lapse decisive. Damages for the destroyed fountain are awarded.
Formally, that resolves the case. Informally, tension lingers. After the ruling, the homeowner’s house is egged on Halloween, positioned just outside the camera’s view. No accusation is proven. The temperature between neighbors changes anyway.
Text Version
I got summoned for injuring my neighbor’s kid who hurt herself on my property
INCONCLUSIVE
I am not The OOP, OOP is u/zener0n
I got summoned for injuring my neighbor’s kid who hurt herself on my property
Originally posted to r/legaladvice
Original Post Aug 27, 2017
[USA/California] I was served with a paper to be summoned in small claims court and I am being sued by my neighbor for $10,000 in damages. Long story short… my neighbor’s kids (around 6 years old) were playing on my front yard without my knowledge or consent and one of them climbed onto my water fountain. I heard a loud crash and I found out that my fountain was destroyed and it topple over on top of the child. I had to call 911 since the kid was bleeding badly.
Now, here we are as I just got served with papers to show up at court. My neighbor is making up excuses saying I failed to secure my fountain and that it was a tragic accident waiting for it to happen. They are suing me for damages and medical bills for their child.
What should I do to prepare myself? Is there any counter argument to that especially since it was private property and the kid should have never been climbing on my fountain in the first place?
RELEVANT COMMENTS
nullpassword
I think they would have to prove it was an attractive nuisance. https://www.google.com/search?q=attractive+nuisance&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
Which i guess means if your fountain looked like a water slide you might be in trouble. but otherwise.. 2nd homeowners insurance.
OOP
Nope. It was something similar to this: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/a8/60/98/a86098af280596fea35d870fe4ce07fd.jpg
I also had a recording of a video that shows the front door of my house. The kid was playing on top of my fountain for 3 minutes with no sight of the adults until it topple over. (Parents were nearby but was not paying attention to the kids). Maybe this video would help me claim that the adult should have enough time and warning to tell their kids to not climb on top of the fountain?
likeursoperfect
Have you had the fountain for a while or is it new? Have the kids climbed on it before? If it’s been there for a long time, and they’ve never climbed on it before, it seems like it would be tough for the parents to prove the attractive nuisance angle.
OOP
The fountain has been there for awhile. At least 5 years. I have secured the top piece of the fountain and the second level with gorilla glue to ensure that wind won’t just blow it over, but never would I imagine that a kid would climb on top of it. Plus, the fountain was surrounded by rocks and flowers and they have to walk over those things before being able to touch the fountain.
Update Nov 15, 2017 (3 months later)
[USA-CALIFORNIA] This is an updated post to the original: https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/6weds8/i_got_summoned_for_injuring_my_neighbors_kid_who/
So long story short… my neighbor sued me for $10,000 in damages. I also countersued and wanted my neighbor to reimburse me for any court paperwork that I had to do, the fountain he broke, and the time I wasted.
The judge concluded that I was not responsible for injuring my neighbor’s kid and that the fountain was properly secured to the best of my ability. I also showed him the video of the kid playing on top of the fountain before it fell. Judge told the parents that ultimately it was their responsibility to look after their kid especially when the video showed over 3 minutes of the kid playing on top of the fountain before the collapse. They knew their kids were playing on the fountain and they did not tell them to stop.
Judge rewarded my request for the damages to my fountain. Now my neighbors are hating on me. Just weeks ago, my house was egged on Halloween, away from the view of the camera and I was the only house that was egged! Very suspicious that I would be the one house that was egged and know the position of the camera unless I have shown it to them… like in court. Are there anyways to protect myself?
Source
The first layer is structural. Property lines suggest clarity this side yours, that side mine but daily life softens those borders. Children run across lawns. Decorative features become climbing frames. Expectations overlap without being negotiated.
When the accident happens, those blurred edges snap into focus. The parents describe the fountain as an obvious risk, something unstable enough to invite disaster. The homeowner counters with documentation: glue securing the tiers, landscaping that required stepping over rocks and flowers, a video timestamp marking three full minutes of unsupervised play.
The camera records the child on top of the fountain. No adults enter the frame. The structure tips.
For a while, escalation is procedural. Lawsuit filed. Countersuit submitted. Evidence shown. Decision delivered. The judge names supervision as decisive and awards damages for the broken fountain.
And then Halloween. One house egged. Not the others. The splatter sits along a wall angled just beyond the lens.
It’s easy to treat the courtroom outcome as narrative closure. Legally, it is clean. Socially, it is not. A public ruling redistributes standing inside a small community. Someone is affirmed. Someone is corrected. That doesn’t evaporate at the property line.
The homeowner appears measured, almost administrative in his response document, present, counterclaim. The parents appear protective, then defensive, then silent. Fear, pride, resentment: none of it is abstract when you live next door.
The fountain is gone. The rocks still border the flower bed. Cameras remain mounted.
The verdict resolved liability. It did not restore ease.
