In October 2025, the family’s one-year-old son was enrolled at a licensed child-care center in Houston. He was an infant, completely dependent on the adults the center was paid to provide.
According to the petition, the child was left alone outside in the play area for a period of time while in the center’s care, and the staff did not know where he was. His absence was not noticed by employees on their own. It came to light only when his mother arrived to pick him up and the staff could not produce her son.
What followed was every parent’s nightmare: a frantic search through the indoor areas of the daycare for a one-year-old no one could find. He was ultimately discovered outside, by himself, with scratches on his body and in distress. The people responsible for watching him had not realized he was outside at all.
The center is a licensed Texas child-care facility. Texas child-care rules require supervision that keeps each child within a caregiver’s sight and hearing at all times, which is the exact protection a one-year-old depends on. The petition alleges the center failed to provide that supervision, failed to keep adequate and properly trained staff, and failed to notice that a baby was missing until a parent forced the question.
This is not only the family’s account. A Texas Health and Human Services monitoring inspection of this operation cited the center for a high-risk deficiency under the state’s supervision standard, with the inspection’s findings reflecting that a child had been left alone in a classroom. The center was later recorded as compliant after it retrained its caregivers on supervision and name-to-face head counts. We are pursuing the center’s staffing, training, and supervision records to establish the full picture of how a one-year-old ended up alone outside.
We represent the family and have filed suit against the operator of 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 supervise, the failure to keep adequate and trained staff, and the failure to notice and notify when a child went missing. We are seeking the records that show how a one-year-old was left outside alone and why no one knew.
A daycare does not get to take a family’s money to keep their baby safe, leave him alone outside, and not even know he is gone until his mother asks where he is. We intend to hold this center fully accountable.
We represent the family and have filed suit against the operator of 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 supervise, the failure to keep adequate and trained staff, and the failure to notice and notify when a child went missing. We are seeking the records that show how a one-year-old was left outside alone and why no one knew.
A daycare does not get to take a family’s money to keep their baby safe, leave him alone outside, and not even know he is gone until his mother asks where he is. We intend to hold this center fully accountable.
