When you put your children in daycare, you expect them to be safe. When they get sick or hurt because of inattention and neglect by the daycare workers, you might have a case.
Generally, daycare workers and facilities are required to operate reasonably. This means doing the normal kinds of things that someone would do to care for children: keeping a reasonable eye on them, checking what they eat, avoiding choking hazards, and stopping fights. If your child was hurt because the daycare didn’t take these reasonable steps, we can file a lawsuit in court and serve them.
For help with your potential injury case, call Burriss Ridgeway Injury Lawyers’ Columbia, SC personal injury attorneys at (803) 451-4000 today.
Who Can Sue for Daycare Neglect and Injury?
Injury lawsuits against a daycare facility usually have to be filed by one of these two parties:
Parents/Guardians
Parents or legal guardians can sue on behalf of their kids. If your child was injured, you usually need to file the claim within 3 years.
The Child
Children cannot sue on their own behalf while they are children. However, the law may give them the right to sue within 3 years of turning 18.
Most claims require damages sooner, so the parent is more likely to file on their behalf well before the child turns 18. If that happens, the child cannot go and sue again later.
What Constitutes “Neglect” in a Daycare?
The term “neglect” can mean many different things under the law, but the conduct involved is often easily recognized.
Examples
These are just a few of the common issues that could be considered neglect at a daycare:
- Allowing a child to injure themselves through horseplay that would have been shut down with proper supervision.
- Allowing fighting.
- Abuse or sexual abuse by a staff member.
- Choking or eating something dangerous because of improper supervision.
- Allowing a child to wander away from the facility.
- Injuries from unsafe or dirty facilities.
Legal Definition
Accidents and mistakes happen, but they do not always rise to the level of actionable neglect. Instead, the law requires that there was some sort of mistake or problem on the part of the defendant to cause the injuries.
This is known as “negligence” under the law.
Proving a Daycare Negligence Claim
A negligence claim against a daycare – or any defendant – has four elements that our South Carolina personal injury lawyers need to prove.
Duty
The duty is the standard the daycare facility or its staff members are expected to uphold. This may be based on state laws or regulations in some cases – such as requiring health inspections for food-service facilities in a large daycare facility.
Otherwise, the duty involved is usually based on what is reasonable. For example, a reasonable babysitter or daycare worker would keep an eye on small children around small toys to prevent them from playing with anything that might be a choking hazard for their age group/size.
Breach
A breach of duty occurs when the defendant fails to meet their duty. This often stems from inattention, lack of care, or lack of skill.
To return to the choking hazard example, it might be inappropriate for a daycare worker to leave a toddler unaccompanied with a set of LEGOs, knowing that they could easily be a choking hazard.
Causation
For a successful injury lawsuit, you must show that the breach of duty is what caused the injuries. This is somewhat complex, because children have some agency to protect themselves and make their own decisions.
Even so, many accidents and instances of neglect and abuse at daycares happen because of the mistakes of the adults in charge, not the children.
Damages
Lastly, you have to show damages. An accident that scares a child but does not actually harm them might not be allowed in a lawsuit. Further, an accident that causes only minor injuries – like a scraped knee – might not be worth pursuing.
Instead, most cases of daycare injury involve medical care costs, long-term harm, and pain and suffering damages.
Evidence Needed
Proving an injury case requires evidence. This often comes in the form of testimony from people who witnessed the injury happening.
You can subpoena witnesses and evidence, such as workers at the facility or records within the daycare’s control. We can even potentially get security camera video, employee logs, and other evidence that might not otherwise be handed over without a fight.
We can also rely on testimony from children about what happened to them. They might not actually testify in a courtroom at all if the case settles.
Filing the Claim
These are the steps needed to actually file your claim in court:
Choosing Proper Court
Usually, injury claims are filed in the county court where the accident took place. In some cases, daycares might try to move the case to arbitration, but we can try to fight this.
Including Proper Defendants
We need to sue the right parties. In many cases, workers might be included in the case with the goal of holding the daycare responsible for what their employees did within the scope of their duties. The goal is not typically to try to get damages out of the individual worker – unless of course they were the one who runs the daycare facility.
Writing Complaint
We need to put all of the evidence, facts, and legal arguments into a complaint and file it in court to start the case.
Serving Defendants
We also must serve the defendant with a copy before the case can start.
How Do You Investigate the Case?
Our lawyers can write letters formally demanding evidence from the daycare facility and calling in witnesses for depositions. Once we file the case in court, we get a lot more authority to compel these things through the court’s subpoena powers.
How Long Do You Have to File?
South Carolina law typically gives you 3 years to file an injury lawsuit, but you should call our lawyers far sooner to get the investigations started and preserve evidence and witness statements.
Call Our South Carolina Personal Injury Lawyers Today
For your free case review with Burriss Ridgeway Injury Lawyers’ South Carolina personal injury attorneys, call (803) 451-4000.
