Daycare Liabilities
by Cristy Chu

Here is interesting info from this class I took last Saturday. It was taught by an attorney who is on the board for Johnson County childcare Association. He said basically home providers should walk around with a t-shirt that has a target printed on it! LOL!! We have a huge liability.

Degree of Care:

The care you owe someone else in an activity of society. Since we are charging for childcare, our degree of care is high. A teenager who is a hired assistant for us is held to the same degree of care that a Masters Level Infant teacher would be, because we are accepting money for it. This is important when we talk about having an assistant. They are held to the same degree of care as we are, and we are responsible for their actions.

In Loco Parentis

This means we are acting in place of the parents and do everything they would do for the child in their absence. Juries use this standard to measure if a provider was in the wrong.

Tort

This is a civil wrong. A violation of a a legal duty (degree of care) to another resulting in damage and as a result, you are legally liable. This is important because nobody has a case against anyone else unless there is actual damage. for instance, the parent who threatens to sue us because he does not like our policies, etc. has no case.

Claim vs. Lawsuit

A claim is when someone has damages caused by you and brings it to your attention for reparation. A lawsuit is what arrises when/if the claim is not resolved. This involves going to court, hiring attorney, etc. A claim can be handled by an insurance company, hopefully quickly. A lawsuit may take quite a while to get resolved.

Role of Insurance

Insurance comes in to play when we have a claim. Most of the time, insurance will pay a claim thereby dispelling the need for a lawsuit. In the event of a lawsuit, insurance will pay for attorney fees, court costs, etc as well as the judgement amount, if awarded. These attorney fees and other costs involved in a lawsuit are called supplemental defense costs. Most companies I know pay this, but there may be some who do not. When I was in aviation insurance, some companies did not pay supplemental defense costs. You do not want a company that does not pay it, or will only pay your policy limit of a settlement fee and court costs all together.

The presenter stated that unless you have enough money to hire an attorney for at least 80 hours at $175 per hour plus his research time, then you need insurance. He said that even if we had homeowners coverage, it may not be enough.

Areas of Potential Liability

Failure to supervise, this is a big one. We obviously need to supervise kids, but also employees and especially parents. The Archdiocese of a certain city (I forgot) was sued big time b/c a parent dropped a child off at the door of the center without walking him in. The parent drove off, child ran in the street a little while later and got ran over. The jury deemed the Archdiocese at fault because they did not enforce a rule of having the parent physically bring the child in. Be particularly careful on field trips. This is where a lot of problems leading to lawsuits happen.

Another area of liability is unsafe premises or equipment. Even though it may be hard, inspect playground/yard equipment daily before kids go outside. You never know if there is an animal hiding in a playhouse, if someone threw a beer bottle in your yard, etc. This is another area that has led to lawsuits.

A special area of concern is divorce/custody battles. We as childcare providers can't deny a person the right to their child unless there is a court supported document. We need to have a copy of that document on file. Just because a mom says to take the dad off the pick up list is not good enough. We still need court papers or we can be held liable for not giving the child to dad. When enrolling a single mom, ask about the father. If he is not in the picture, get as much info as you can and take notes.

Also, intoxicated parents. The bummer thing is : natural parents have complete rights to their child at all times. We are in the wrong (legally speaking) if we do not release a child to a parent who has been drinking. The attorney said we have several choices. If this is a normally good parent who just came from an office Christmas party, sit down with them, talk a while, make a pot of coffee and just try to suggest that they stay a while or offer to drive them home. If it is a parent who has done this before, care should be terminated. Of course, try to make sure they get home safely. But if you can't, the first thing you do when the parent leaves is to call the police and let them know what is going on.

He said do not refuse the parent the right to their child unless you are prepared to call DFS right then and there. He cautioned us strongly about doing that because he said that when DFS becomes involved in a parent and child's life, they become involved in our lives as well,and that parents who enter the system rarely leave it.

*Submitted by Patrisha

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