A mother has filed a lawsuit claiming her son developed a significant skin reaction after getting his face painted at Legoland, according to complaint documents. (Provided)
A Florida mother filed a lawsuit claiming her young son developed a significant, possibly permanent skin reaction after getting his face painted at Legoland, according to complaint documents.
In May 2016, the boy visited Legoland, where he got his face painted by an employee, the lawsuit filed earlier this month said. Sometime following the visit to the park, the boy started “to complain that his face was itching and burning,” the document said.
The boy's mother, Jessica Bermudez, noticed a rash developing on her son’s cheeks and took him to the doctor, the lawsuit stated, where they were given medication.
However the rash persisted, further spreading around the boy’s cheeks as well as his nose and mouth, and “causing dark spots and discoloration,” the lawsuit claimed. The pair returned to the doctor, who again prescribed medication, and diagnosed the boy with eczema “based on the aggressive spreading of the rash” and skin discoloration, according to the documents.
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“Several doctor visits later, and after twenty-three months of various treatments and prescriptions,” the boy’s “skin condition continues to worsen, and the doctors became baffled as to why the rash and discoloration would not go away,” the lawsuit said.
During a medical visit in March, by which point “the rash had grown evenly around” the boy’s “mouth area, and on both cheeks,” his doctor called in for a second opinion, the lawsuit said. The second medical professional asked whether anything had been on the child’s face around when he got the rash, and Bermudez remembered the face paint, the document said.
Bermudez shared pictures of her son when he was having his face painted and they realized that his “skin had a negative reaction to the paint used on his face at Legoland that has caused him great pain and suffering, as well as two years of humiliation by other child and deep emotional distress,” the lawsuit claimed.
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According to Junior Mentor, an attorney representing the family who spoke to the Orlando Sentinel, the child has been taunted at school and given the nickname, “Racoon.”
“He doesn’t know what it is. He wants it to go away,” Mentor said. “He goes to the mirror in the morning and tries to brush it off.”
The lawsuit, which is looking for more than $15,000, has claimed negligence and negligent infliction of emotional distress, according to the document.
“The Defendants knew or should have known that that emotional distress would likely follow if a young middle school child would have a permanent rash and nasty discoloration of his cheeks,” the lawsuit said. “As a direct and proximate result of the actions of defendants,” the boy “suffered bodily injury and resulting pain and suffering, disfigurement, mental anguish, medical expenses. The losses are either permanent or continuing, and the Plaintiff will suffer losses in the future.”
When contacted by Fox News, a representative for Legoland provided the following statement: “Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We take all matters relating to the well-being of our guests seriously. We have not been contacted regarding this legal matter and therefore cannot comment at this time.”