The family had entrusted their son to a licensed child-care center in Houston, in Harris County. He was in the center’s care during the day, with his parents trusting the staff to watch him on the playground and keep him safe.
According to the petition, while the boy was under the center’s supervision, he struck his head on a concrete bench in the playground area and suffered a severe laceration. The injury was serious enough that he had to be taken to an emergency room, where the wound was closed with staples.
The petition alleges that the center’s employees who were responsible for the child could not explain how the injury occurred. That is an account consistent with a child who was not being adequately watched, whether because of caregiver inattention, too few staff for the number of children, or both. The family contends the center failed to keep proper watch over the boy and failed to promptly tell his parents what had happened.
The center is a licensed Texas child-care center serving infants, toddlers, pre-kindergarten, and school-age children. Texas child-care rules require centers to provide a safe environment, to supervise children at all times, to maintain proper child-to-caregiver ratios, and to meet minimum safety requirements for their play areas. Those are the protections meant to keep a young child from splitting his head open on a hard surface. The petition alleges the center failed to provide a safe environment, failed to keep proper watch over the children, failed to maintain adequate staffing, and failed to meet the safety requirements that apply to its playground.
When the people who were supposed to be supervising a child cannot say how he came to be seriously hurt, that itself points to a supervision breakdown. We are pursuing the center’s staffing and ratio records for that day, its supervision and playground-safety policies, its incident documentation, and the condition of the playground area, to establish how a child in its care suffered a head injury this serious.
We represent the family and have filed suit against the center in Harris County. We brought claims for negligence, gross negligence, and violations of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, including the failure to provide a safe environment, the failure to supervise, the failure to maintain adequate staffing, and the failure to render aid and promptly notify the parents. We are pressing the center to preserve and produce its records and to account for how this happened.
A daycare does not get to take a family’s money to keep their child safe, let him split his head open on a concrete bench, and then have no explanation for how it happened on its watch. We intend to hold this center fully accountable.
We represent the family and have filed suit against the center in Harris County. We brought claims for negligence, gross negligence, and violations of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, including the failure to provide a safe environment, the failure to supervise, the failure to maintain adequate staffing, and the failure to render aid and promptly notify the parents. We are pressing the center to preserve and produce its records and to account for how this happened.
A daycare does not get to take a family’s money to keep their child safe, let him split his head open on a concrete bench, and then have no explanation for how it happened on its watch. We intend to hold this center fully accountable.
