In February 2026, the family’s one-year-old daughter was enrolled at a licensed child-care center in Manor, just outside Austin. She was dropped off in the center’s care like any other day, with her family trusting the staff to keep constant watch over a child far too young to keep herself safe.
According to the petition, the toddler was able to walk out of the building through an emergency exit door on her own, undetected. She made it outside and into the daycare’s parking lot, where she was left wandering alone among the cars, with no staff member aware that a one-year-old had left the facility.
The petition alleges the danger was caught only by chance. Two parents who happened to be there found the one-year-old wandering the parking lot and brought her back into the building. The center’s own employees, the petition alleges, did not know the child had ever left their care.
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 supervise children at all times, to keep exits secured, to maintain adequate staffing, and to provide a safe environment. Those are the precise protections meant to make it impossible for a one-year-old to reach an exterior door alone, let alone a parking lot. The petition alleges the center failed at each of these and that supervision in the child’s classroom was lacking.
A toddler does not let herself out an emergency door and into a parking lot when she is being properly watched. We are pursuing the center’s staffing and head-count records, its door-security and supervision policies, the condition and alarming of the exit she used, and its account of how a one-year-old left the building unnoticed and how long she was outside before two strangers brought her back.
We represent the family and have filed suit against the center in Travis 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 the child inside the facility, the failure to maintain adequate staffing, and the failure to provide a safe environment. We are pressing the center to preserve and produce its records and footage and to account for how a one-year-old walked out an exit door without anyone noticing.
A daycare does not get to take a family’s money to keep their child safe, let a one-year-old walk out into a parking lot, and only find out she was gone when strangers carry her back inside. We intend to hold this center fully accountable.
We represent the family and have filed suit against the center in Travis 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 the child inside the facility, the failure to maintain adequate staffing, and the failure to provide a safe environment. We are pressing the center to preserve and produce its records and footage and to account for how a one-year-old walked out an exit door without anyone noticing.
A daycare does not get to take a family’s money to keep their child safe, let a one-year-old walk out into a parking lot, and only find out she was gone when strangers carry her back inside. We intend to hold this center fully accountable.
