At one point or another, before they reach school age, 80% of American children will have spent some portion of their young life in a day care center.
When you consider the number of single parent homes or two income families, that number should not be surprising. Parents choose the center carefully and have an expectation that their child will be safe. If your child was hurt while in the care of a daycare facility you should contact a Missouri personal injury attorney immediately. While we can expect some accidents to occur, just as if the child were at home, others that could have been avoided may have been the result of negligence.
Safety – The Number One Purpose
The primary purpose of a daycare center is to supervise the activities of youngsters, not to educate. There are three ways that a court may find a childcare center liable for injury to your child. The first is negligence, where a staff member knowingly put the child in harms way, say for example, by not strapping him into a highchair. There is an obvious known risk in the behavior that the daycare worker chose to ignore. The second indicator of liability is negligence per se. This is when a daycare center violates a written law or statute that governs them. Some jurisdictions have requirements regarding the number of children per adult ratio.
Negligence – How Liability is Determined
If your child was injured and it is found that the daycare center was not meeting that requirement at the time, they are negligent, regardless of how your child was hurt. In legal terms, the last liability indicator is known as res ipsa loquitur, or the thing that speaks for itself. Courts use this term when there is no way to prove how an accident occurred, but that it is obvious some form of negligence had to be involved. If you notice a large and painful hematoma on your baby’s back when you get home, but the daycare provider cannot offer an explanation, then it is obvious that an accident occurred, but the supervisor failed to notice it.
Recently in the news was a report of a Virginia day care center that is being investigated by authorities for allegations of mistreatment of the children by staff members. Some reportedly purposely stepped on the little toes of toddlers or fed them spicy food to see how they would react. These types of incidences happen rarely, but as a parent, you should always observe your child’s reactions to going to daycare and check in unexpectedly from time to time.
When Negligence Becomes Fatal
There are some instances where daycare negligence can turn deadly. A Missouri mom dropped her toddler off at his usual center one morning only to get a phone call later that day that he had been taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital. The little boy held on for three days before succumbing to the deadly effects of shaken baby syndrome. Not only did the parents file a successful civil suit against the center and its owner, but criminal charges were also filed.
We want desperately to believe that our children are being well looked after while out of our care, and most of the time they are. But if your child was hurt while in a day care center you should closely examine the circumstances of the incident with a Missouri personal injury attorney. Not only will you be seeking compensation for your own baby, but you may be helping another avoid harm by opening the center’s eyes to where they can improve on their important service.
Photo credit: paprutzi
