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Our lawyers represent parents and their children in lawsuits and for settlements for injuries from preventable accident and abuse in daycare centers in Maryland.
Millions of parents put their kids in daycare every day. Everyone thinks and hopes their child is safe, or they would not put their child in that daycare in the first place. But good parents cannot protect their children from many of the possible things that can go wrong in a daycare. Children fall in playground mishaps and during horseplay. Children get hurt on the bus or being transported to field trips and activities. Tragically, some children are harmed physically and sexually by their peers or the daycare providers.
These things can happen in awful daycare centers, to be sure. But they also sometimes occur in daycare facilities that seem perfect. That is what is so scary for parents.
The quality of day care varies wildly in the country. Maryland, like most states, has crafted laws to try to protect children and to try to require day care centers to provide minimal standards of care.
But a daycare is only as good as the people who are working there. There is no law that can stop a daycare provider who does not care about the children. Certainly, most people who work in daycare centers are good people who love children and make their safety paramount. But there is a small subset of daycare employees who neglect the safety of children and, sometimes, act with evil intent.
Many daycare injury lawsuits are from lack of adequate supervision. For example, is the room arranged in a way that people can actually have eyes on supervision of kids? Is the playground set up so you can monitor the kids all the time? Where are the bathrooms, how are they structured, what's the supervision structure, etc. So when you talk about when you talk about child neglect, bully, sexual abuse, you are talking about supervision.
Finding Insurance CoverageOne recurring theme in daycare cases is whether the facility is licensed and whether there is insurance to cover the injuries. Maryland law creates a lot of hoops to jump through to be a licensed daycare facility. Sometimes, the biggest battles in these cases are not proving the abuse or neglect but finding insurance coverage for the injuries. If you sue and get a verdict, there has to be money there to pay a settlement or verdict. One big battle with smaller daycare facilities: whether the provider's homeowner's insurance applies.
Jury Verdicts and Settlements Against Daycare ProvidersWe have compiled a list of verdicts in lawsuits against day care providers around the country. This is not meant to be a representative sampling by any stretch.
- 2017, Texas: $325,000 settlement for a child who was attacked by another child with scissors. The lawsuit alleged that the daycare providers knew this child had a propensity for violence but failed to adequately supervise the children. The parents sought compensation for their child for physical pain and suffering, mental anguish, physical disfigurement, physical impairment and medical expenses.
- 2017, Nevada: $75,000 settlement for a seven-month-old who suffered a leg injury after being dropped by a daycare provider.
- 2016, Texas: $142,000,000 verdict for the death an infant who had been taken to a home-based daycare center. The owner of the daycare attempted to soothe the crying baby by swaddling him and placed him on his side in an adult bed. Several hours later, another worker entered the room and saw the child face down on the bed. The child died from asphyxiation. Obviously, the jury was infuriated and gave a stunning verdict but the reality is that the plaintiff will be lucky to collect from a defendant who likely had no insurance.
- 2015, Minnesota: $13,500,000 verdict for a three-and-a-half-year-old who was physically and sexually assaulted by a nine-and-a-half-year-old boy at a casino daycare. Surveillance cameras in the facility recorded some of the physical assault but did not record the sexual assault. The child was beaten, strangled and raped by the other child. He suffered a subconjunctival hemorrhage in his eye from strangulation and numerous bruises all over his face and his body, as well as injuries from the sexual abuse. The basis for the lawsuit in this tragedy is what we have been saying these cases are almost invariably about: failure to supervise. Juries had to be infuriated that with all the supervision and surveillance in a casino, they failed to catch this horrific crime in its daycare. It is also hard to believe there was not an out-of-court settlement in a case like this.
- 2012, Virginia: $30,000 settlement for a six-year-old boy who fell over a railing, fracturing his leg which required an open reduction. The claim was that the deck railing was not high enough to prevent the child from falling.
- 2012, Florida: $3,000,000 verdict against a daycare provider for a child that was sexually assaulted by a teacher's 13-year-old son.
- 2012, Pennsylvania: $60,300 verdict for a two-year-old whose upper lip suffered a four-inch cut by a sharp object while taking a nap. Crazy facts: a gust of wind blows over a poster, which knocks over a cup that falls off the windowsill, hit a bookshelf and shatters. Negligence was leaving the breakable items near the sleeping kids.
- 2011, Texas: $22,500 settlement for a daycare center after it failed to care for a four-year-old child who cut his hand.
- 2011, Florida: $100,000 verdict for a five-year-old struck in the eye with a snowball thrown by an employee of the daycare on a field trip to an ice rink, causing him to lose sight in his eye. The verdict was so low, the plaintiff's lawyer filed a motion for additur, arguing that a reasonable jury would not award so little to a boy who lost an eye.
- 2011, Massachusetts: a $300,000 settlement for a child after the daycare center allowed the infant to be left alone with a four-year-old girl who scalded the infant with hot water.
If your child has been seriously injured as the result of a negligent or intentional act at the child's day care center, our daycare injury attorneys will be glad to speak with you. Call 800-553-8082 or get a free no obligation Internet consultation.
Other Daycare Lawsuit Links- Shaken baby syndrome
- Premises liability cases (an overview)
- What does a crying baby with an arching back mean?
