Getting Through Your Divorce and on With Your Life

Daycare Injuries: Not Just An Accident

23 July 2019

Celina Henry

Most parents expend a great deal of thought and energy into finding trustworthy care for their children. Unfortunately, accidents can happen at the best of facilities. What might first look like an accident, however, may be grounds for a lawsuit. Read on to find out more about taking action when your child is hurt at a daycare facility.

Failure to Supervise

Obviously, children should not be left on their own. No matter how many people your daycare employs, there is always a chance that none of them was paying enough attention at the time your child was hurt. Failing to supervise a child at a daycare center is negligence, plain and simple. You must not view a daycare accident as only an accident–be sure to look further into the matter to ascertain exactly why an accident was allowed to occur.

Duty of Care

Daycare operators owe parents what is known in legalese as a duty of care. That means they can be held responsible if it can be shown that the caregivers failed to properly supervise the children. Where many daycare centers fall down on the job is when some or all of the following occur:

1. Poor planning–For example, a daycare center was not staffed properly due to not having a back-up roster of available workers and a child was injured as a result of inattention.
2. Carelessness–For example, a daycare worker left the door to the kitchen area open and a child was allowed to burn themselves on a hot stove.
3. Poor organization–For example, a scheduling error resulted in workers not being present in the nap room when there should have been someone watching them. As a result, a toddler hit another toddler with an object causing a serious injury.
4. Lack of training–For example, daycare workers should be trained in basic first-aid practices, including cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). The life of a child could be in the balance if a worker is not trained to administer CPR and other first-aid support.
5. Lack of protocol–You don't need to search very far to find dozens and dozens of incidents where a child is left behind in a hot vehicle accidentally. Daycare centers are often in charge of several children at once when they go on trips and it can be a challenge to account for everyone during the trip. Unfortunately, unless the daycare center has put fail-safe measures in place to assure the van is empty of children, they are totally negligent and have failed to abide by the duty of care principle when a child is harmed in that situation.

When a child is hurt or even killed due to the negligence of a daycare center, your actions to hold them responsible could make things safer for children in the future. Speak to a negligence attorney such as Franklin L. Jones, Jr. to find out more.

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