A Closer Look at Daycare Injuries

The death of a child is always tragic. An injury-related death, which accounts for about 20 percent of the total, is even more tragic. Caregivers can protect children from injury-related deaths at home. But they cannot protect them when they’re at daycare or otherwise away from home.

In these situations, they rely entirely upon the daycare to keep children safe. Too many times, daycares let them down.

Most injury-related deaths aren’t “accidents.” Instead, negligence, or a lack of care, causes them. If that’s the case, a Seattle day care injury lawyer can obtain the compensation these families need and deserve. This compensation usually includes money for economic losses, such as medical bills, and noneconomic losses, such as pain and suffering.

Employee Negligence

Daycare workers are usually overworked and underpaid. These conditions don’t change the fact that daycare workers have a duty of reasonable care. They must take steps to ensure that their students are safe at all times. They must prevent falls and other trauma injuries. They must also be on the lookout for allergic reactions and other serious medical conditions.

If a breach of duty causes injury, a Seattle personal injury lawyer can obtain compensation, as mentioned above. Since children are so vulnerable and unable to protect themselves, daycare workers have a very slim margin of error.

Daycare workers are usually negligent if they don’t properly supervise children. This category could include not watching them or allowing them to play in dangerous areas, like near a stray dog. To a child, a minor incident, like a fall off the monkey bars, could cause a serious injury.

The daycare owner is financially responsible for these injuries, at least in most cases, because of the respondeat superior rule. Employers are liable for the aforementioned damages if their employees are negligent during the course and scope of employment. Washington law defines all these key phrases in broad, victim-friendly terms.

Owner Negligence

Many of the aforementioned injuries either wouldn’t occur, or wouldn’t be as bad, if owners took proper care of their facilities. Let’s go back to the monkey bars fall. If the playground equipment is built over a soft surface, like rubber, serious injuries are unlikely. If the equipment is built over a hard surface, like the bare ground, serious injuries are almost inevitable.

Under Washington law, daycare kids are invitees. They have permission to be at the facility and they, or rather their caregivers, pay tuition. Therefore, daycare owners must immediately address and remove known injury hazards.

Evidence of knowledge could be direct or circumstantial. Direct evidence includes safety reports and other such documents. Circumstantial evidence revolves around the time-notice rule. If a hazard, like a wet spot on a floor, just occurred when a victim fell, the owner probably didn’t know about it, so no duty of care applies.

Contact a Thorough King County Lawyer

Daycares have child safety responsibilities. For a free consultation with an experienced personal injury lawyer in Seattle, contact the Emerald Law Group. We do not charge upfront legal fees in these matters.

Source:

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5568777/