Our children are our most precious resource. We entrust their safety to daycare providers here in Mississippi and believe that the provider acts in the child’s best interests. But what happens when a daycare provider is negligent or reckless, injuring your child? Who will pay for medical bills and costs of long-term treatment? How would you know if a seemingly innocuous playground accident will develop into a brain-stunting disability in the years to come? Determining how to proceed when a daycare accident occurs is a decision fraught with pitfalls. Hiring an experienced personal injury attorney is your first step towards resolving this issue in you and your child’s best interests. I have written the following blog post to help people understand the problems that this type of claim raises.
If you or a loved one was injured or killed as a result of a daycare accident, you will need to have experienced counsel help you attain your fair share of compensation for his or her injury and recovery. Barrett Law has the experience to help you if you. Contact us now at (800) 707-9577.
What You Should Do if Your Child is Injured at Daycare
In Mississippi, a daycare provider will be financially responsible for injuries your child suffered on your property if the injuries are the result of the provider’s negligence. “Negligence” is a legal term that means that a person had a duty towards someone—here, the daycare provider had a duty to your child. Part of that duty is acting reasonably to protect your child from reasonably foreseeable harm.
What do those legal terms mean? Well, true “accidents” do happen regardless of how careful we all are. Imagine your child falls off of an age-appropriate swing set and breaks her wrist. Your daycare provider was likely not negligent in that scenario, as we all know that children fall of swing sets from time to time, no matter how careful we are. On the other hand, imagine if your five-year-old child was playing with “lawn darts” that a daycare provider bought at a garage sale over the weekend and skewered her leg with a falling dart. As you may remember, “lawn darts” are a dangerous toy that has long been recalled. No adult in their right mind would let a five-year-old play with them. That lawn dart injury would constitute a failure of the daycare provider to protect your child from harm reasonably—they were negligent.
Similarly, you may be able to prove a violation of the daycare’s duty if they failed to meet a licensure requirement—railing heights, number of adults supervising children, class size—and an injury resulted from the failure. Negligent hiring is often a problem with daycares, and if they fail to perform adequate background checks and hire a person who should not be working with children, you may have a claim if that person harms your child. For example, if the daycare hires a person with a record of DUI’s to drive the daycare van, that is a fairly clear violation of the daycare’s duty to protect your child. Similarly, no one with any record of abusing or hurting children should ever be employed at a daycare.
What Should You Do If Your Child Has Been Injured?
If your child is injured in a daycare accident, you must hire a personal injury attorney to assess your case, provide you a clear path forward, and defend your rights. You should be compensated for medical costs, educational remediation, counseling, and other expenses. Let experienced counsel take care of preserving medical records, documenting the accident site, attaining expert opinions, and dealing with the day care’s attorneys. These are essential tasks that only a personal injury attorney can handle for you.
Call Barrett Law now, an experienced Mississippi personal injury law firm, to represent you if you have suffered an injury. Contact us now at (800) 707-9577. The seasoned Mississippi Personal Injury Attorney Jonathan Barrett is ready to assist you now!
