Negligent Supervision of a Child

Washington, D.C., Maryland, & Virginia

When you entrust your child to someone else's care, you expect that the child will be properly supervised and cared for. Negligent supervision of children can lead to accidents, abduction, serious injuries, and even death.

Responsible parties

Anyone who accepts responsibility for the care of your child while you are not present, may be held liable for negligent supervision including:

• Daycare providers
• Nannys
• Teachers
• Schools
• Churches
• Babysitters
• Camp counselors
• Parents of other children

Too many children

Negligent supervision often becomes an issue when the child to caregiver ratio is too high. While it is impossible to prevent all injuries to all children all of the time, schools and facilities that overload caregivers with more children than they can reasonably supervise, create a dangerous situation in which it is difficult to prevent accidents.

What constitutes negligent supervision?

Failure to prevent a foreseeable injury by failing to monitor a child is negligent supervision. Adequate supervision must be determined based on a child's known behavior and level of development. The younger the child, the more supervision the child will need. Likewise, a child with developmental or behavioral problems will also need greater supervision than another child of the same age.

Environment plays a part as well. Obviously, increased supervision is needed in certain settings such as swimming pools and in crowded public places. Additionally, caregivers should have an established plan of action to be implemented if a child is lost.

When another child harms your child

Children can and do hurt each other both accidentally and intentionally. Caregivers have a responsibility to prevent such injuries and have a duty to supervise children with known violent behavior even more closely. Parents are not excluded from this duty. If your child is in the care of another parent, that parent has a duty to prevent their child from hurting your child if such behavior is foreseeable.

If your child has been injured or killed due to negligent supervision in Maryland, Virginia or Washington DC, please e-mail or speak to one of our skilled daycare legal specialists before you settle with an insurance company. The attorneys at Chaikin, Sherman, Cammarata & Siegel, P.C. are here to obtain justice for you.

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