Daycare Injury

You send your child to daycare thinking that they will be safe while you focus on work. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Daycare centers can be negligent and cause your child’s injuries. Some facilities end up being involved in sexual abuse, physical abuse, or other forms of daycare abuse.

If your child suffers injuries or abuse in a daycare, a Chicago daycare injury lawyer from Rosenfeld Injury Lawyers can help you take action against daycare providers. Read on to learn more about how we can help you ensure the negligent party is held responsible.

Can You Sue a Daycare for Negligence?

You can sue a daycare for negligence if that negligence leads to your child being injured. Daycare facilities have a responsibility to do everything that they can to ensure the safety of the children in their care. Although accidents do happen, the facility can be held responsible if it fails to prepare for obvious, known, or expected problems that can lead to injuries.

An example of this sort of negligence is when kids play on playground equipment and the daycare provider fails to properly supervise them. This failure could easily lead to a daycare accident in which a child suffers a serious injury. Many daycare injuries lead parents to pursue compensation because of the cost of medical treatment and other factors.

The Role of Liability Waivers

A liability waiver is a legal contract that indemnifies one party against the liability of another. In short, signing a liability waiver means that you agree not to hold a facility responsible if you or another person is injured.

Some daycare facilities include liability waivers in their care agreements and may refuse to take your child in if you refuse to sign the waiver. They do this to protect themselves against personal injury lawsuits from the parents of the children that the facility cares for.

From a business perspective, a single liability lawsuit can be enough to put a daycare out of business due to the high costs and bad press.

However, it cannot provide protection for the daycare against intentional negligence, gross negligence, or abuse. To know if you have a valid case, even if you signed a liability waiver, have your case reviewed by a daycare injury lawyer for advice on your specific situation.

What to Do If Your Child Was Hurt at a Daycare Center

Child injuries at a daycare center can be a sign of negligence, daycare abuse, or even sexual abuse. If your child’s injury is the result of visiting a daycare center, there are a few things that you should do next:

• Ask the daycare center about the injuries if they haven’t already discussed it with you
• Investigate the injuries
• Seek medical attention if needed
• Report injuries that could be signs of sexual abuse to the authorities
• Document the injuries and any steps taken to investigate or report them
• Review your case with a daycare injury lawyer as soon as possible

Signs of Daycare Abuse and Neglect

If you have a child in daycare, here are signs of abuse that you can look for:

• Unexplained injuries
• Severe injuries
• Repeated injuries
• Bruises, cuts, and lacerations
• Broken bones
• Diaper rashes
• Unexplainable timid behavior
• Fear around adults or specific people

The Most Common Types and Causes of Daycare Child Injuries

The most common types and causes of daycare injuries include the following:

• Sexual abuse
• Scarring from lacerations
• Disfigurement from burns
• Traumatic brain injuries from being dropped or shaken
• Death

Liability in Daycare Negligence Cases

When daycare centers are negligent, and when that negligence leads to a child injury case, you can hire a Chicago daycare injury lawyer to determine liability and seek compensation.

Who can be held liable in a daycare abuse lawsuit depends on the type of negligence or injuries and who was involved in the incident. In most cases, personal injury cases are filed against the daycare center.

You may also file a claim against a specific care provider in that facility if the negligence is specific to one person.

Filing a Legal Claim With Our Daycare Injury Lawyers

To file your claim with a daycare accident attorney from Rosenfeld Injury Lawyers, you will follow the following steps:

• Seek medical care for your child and keep records of all paperwork as evidence
• Schedule a free consultation with a daycare accident lawyer to discuss your case
• Have your experienced attorney gather evidence and investigate your claim based on the type of case you have in accordance with Chicago and federal laws
• Participate in the negotiations your personal injury lawyers have with insurance companies and business owners
• If needed, go to trial with your personal injury attorneys, as they’ve built a strong case to seek justice for your child

The Deadline to File a Daycare Injury Lawsuit

There is a limited amount of time for you to file a civil lawsuit for your child: this amount of time is called the statute of limitations, which is two years in Illinois. This means that you have two years from the date that your child is injured to file your lawsuit. If you miss the deadline, you cannot file your lawsuit anymore.

Damages an Experienced Daycare Injury Attorney Can Help You Recover

An experienced daycare injury lawyer may be able to help you recover several types of damages based on factors in your case. You may be able to recover economic damages, such as the cost of seeking medical care for your child, the sum of your legal fees, or even the cost of relocating to a new daycare.

In cases involving abuse or gross negligence, a daycare injury lawyer may also be able to recover non-economic or punitive damages. Non-economic damages include pain and suffering or emotional distress. In some cases, a judge will issue punitive damages to punish the at-fault party for their bad behavior.

Can an Injured Child Be Found Responsible for Their Injuries?

Contributory negligence is the percentage that our own actions contribute to our injuries. In a personal injury claim, what is recoverable relates to our portion of responsibility.

The judge will examine how an injury happened and determine how much each party is proportionally at fault for the injury. The awarded compensation for damages is then changed based on this assessment.

However, under Illinois law, children under the age of 7 are not capable of contributory negligence. This means that these injured children cannot be found responsible for their own injuries.

How Much Can Be Recovered in a Daycare Personal Injury Claim?

There is not a set amount of compensation that you can collect in daycare lawsuit settlements. Every case is different, and the amount you can collect in damages is different based on the specific factors in your case.

For example, we helped a client file a legal claim after their three-year-old child suffered serious orthopedic injuries when he fell from a piece of climbing equipment and broke his leg. The injuries required surgery and physical therapy.

The daycare injury lawsuit lawsuit demonstrated that there was no plan in place to supervise children, and staff did not receive training. The family recovered $410,000 in compensation because the daycare failed to provide a safe environment.

The Time It Takes to Settle a Daycare Injury Case

Settling a daycare abuse lawsuit takes time. It won’t be a quick process, and every case takes a different amount of time to resolve. One of the biggest factors in this extended process is how long it takes to be able to schedule a court date. It can take months or even years to schedule court proceedings, depending on the situation and jurisdiction.

Another factor is how long it can take to investigate claims. When your case is filed, both parties are allotted time to investigate and prepare for proceedings. Depending on the case, this could take months to complete.

The important thing to remember is that once your case is filed with the courts, it will go to trial unless the other party offers you a settlement agreement that you accept. What is more important is that you make sure that your case is filed by the deadline set by the statute of limitations. Otherwise, you won’t be able to take legal action at all.

What Is the Basis of Daycare Injury Claims

daycare injury claims focuses on a few key legal structures, which you should know about ahead of time to fully understand your case:

• Negligence: The daycare facility failed to take action to protect your child from injury.
• Intentional harm: Your child was harmed on purpose by the staff of the daycare facility.
• Strict liability: When someone is liable no matter what other factors influenced the situation.
• Statutory mandates: Legal processes and requirements that must be adhered to under the law, such as medical workers’ requirement to report certain injuries that look like child abuse to family services.

Personal injury attorneys who handle daycare abuse lawsuits and daycare accident cases spend a lot of time and effort building a case to address all of these factors. By the time the case is ready for trial, there is a clear explanation of how the daycare was at fault, given all of these factors.

An experienced daycare negligence lawyer will comb through evidence like medical records, police reports, surveillance footage, and more to make sure that a judge and jury can understand that the daycare is at fault.

Do You Have a Daycare Injury Case?

There are a few criteria that you can examine to see if you have a daycare abuse lawsuit or daycare accident case. During your free case evaluation, your Chicago daycare injury lawyer will look for these criteria to see if you have a case.

The first thing on their list will be negligent parties involved in the daycare accident. A daycare negligence attorney will need to know if someone in the daycare was negligent leading up to the incident. This also helps them determine if daycare injuries are the fault of a specific person or the daycare at large.

Another thing that a daycare abuse attorney will look for is signs of abuse. Some forms of abuse share common signs with daycare accidents, but a look at the daycare over an extended period of time may show that it is a pattern of abuse rather than a single incident.

Proving a Daycare Injury Lawsuit

To prove a daycare abuse case, your daycare abuse attorney will address these factors:

• The daycare center had a duty to children’s safety
• Your child’s daycare facilities breached this duty
• This breach of duty caused your child injuries
• These injuries caused damages, such as medical expenses

Daycare Centers Accident & Injury Statistics

Daycare abuse and negligence is a growing problem in Cook County:

• In Illinois, the student-to-teacher ratio for children around three years old is 10:1. A recent lawsuit against a facility revealed a teacher there was watching 18 three-year-olds, assaulting one of them [1].
• The monitoring process for childcare workers in Illinois is deficient and allows for non-compliance with state background check protocols [2].
• 222 child abuse cases are reported daily in Illinois [3].

The Cost of Hiring Our Chicago Daycare Injury Law Firm

The cost of hiring a Chicago daycare injury attorney does not have to stop you from filing a claim. The daycare injury attorneys at Rosenfeld Injury Lawyers work on a contingency fee basis.

This means that we do not collect an up-front fee to take your case. Instead, we collect our fee as a percentage of what you are awarded in your case. You only pay us if we win your case for you.

Contact a Chicago Daycare Injury Attorney Today!

At Rosenfeld Injury Lawyers, we have helped our clients recover millions. We work on a contingency basis, so you don’t have to worry about paying for our family services up-front or out of your pocket.

Contact us for a free consultation by filling out our contact form or calling toll-free at (888) 424-5757. A staff member is available 24 hours a day to answer your call and provide assistance.

Our downtown office, near the Richard J. Daley Center, Dirkson United States Courthouse, and the Chicago Workers’ Compensation Commission, offers convenient access from Aurora, Joliet, and Waukegan via I-90, I-94, and I-290.

Rosenfeld Injury Lawyers

225 W Wacker Dr #1660
Chicago, IL 60606
Phone: (847) 835-8895
Toll Free: (888) 424-5757

We also serve clients from Chicago, Decatur, Naperville, Rockford and throughout Illinois.

Resources: [1] Chicago Tribune, [2] Health and Human Services, [3] Children’s Advocacy Centers of Illinois

All content undergoes thorough legal review by experienced attorneys, including Jonathan Rosenfeld. With 25 years of experience in personal injury law and over 100 years of combined legal expertise within our team, we ensure that every article is legally accurate, compliant, and reflects current legal standards.