Child Safety

Florida Child Injury Lawyers

Did your child get hurt in Florida as a result of someone’s negligence? Florida Victims’ Rights Attorney Jason Turchin has worked with many parents of child victims to help get them the compensation they deserve, and he wants to help you too. Call the Law Offices of Jason Turchin today at (800) 337-7755.

The phone rings and panic sets in. It’s your child’s daycare.

“Your child has been hurt.”

It’s a parent’s worst fear realized. When you select a daycare, or your child is in someone’s care, you do so believing that your child will be safe and well cared for.

How do Child Accidents Happen?

Kids may get hurt more easily than adults. Parents and most reasonable adults know that children are susceptible to injury because unlike adults, they are unable to fully understand their environment nor can they use reasoning to decide what situations could be too dangerous for them like we as adults can.

A child who climbs on a shelf to reach for his favorite toy is not measuring the consequences of what might happen to him should he fall down. Just as a child who leaves his shoes untied cannot foresee himself tripping and falling over his shoelaces later.

Daycare Injuries

With lots of children playing and running around in a classroom and outside at the playground, a great number of hazardous conditions may arise, leaving kids vulnerable to accidents in day care. Some include:

• Unsupervised children
• Spills that go uncleaned
• Toys that haven’t been picked up
• Unsecured or “wobbly” chairs
• Untied shoelaces
• Faulty playground equipment
• Worn out and broken toys
• Choking hazards
• Negligent hiring practices

When the adults entrusted to care for children at daycare are negligent and fail to properly supervise their class, accidents can happen and kids can end up seriously hurt.

Common injuries at daycare include:

• Broken bones and fractures
• Head injuries
• Asphyxiation
• Assault and Battery
• Sexual Misconduct and Molestation
• Wrongful death

Cruise Injuries

Cruises can be a fun vacation, but there are many dangers which could cause injury to a child on a cruise. For example, a child could trip or slip and fall on a cruise, fall from a balcony, suffer food poisoning, or become the victim of child molestation. If your child was injured on a cruise, you may have a claim for personal injury entitling your child to compensation for medical bills, pain and suffering or more.

Car Accident Involving A Child

When a child is hurt in a car accident in Miami, or elsewhere in Florida, both the child and parent or guardian may suffer significant losses. The parent may have to take time off of work to take the child to various doctor appointments. The parent may have also suffered as a result of a catastrophic injury sustained by the child.

The child may incur medical expenses, get behind in school, or have pain and suffering. These damages may be recoverable against an at-fault party. If your child was hurt in a car accident in Miami and you want to file a car accident lawsuit or a car accident claim, our Florida car accident lawyers can help.

Child Molestation Civil Claim

Our crime victims’ rights attorneys have handled many claims on behalf of children in civil claims as a result of a child molestation. As parents, we entrust our children to the care of others and expect that our children will be safe. However, criminals may try to take advantage of those situations and see it as an opportunity to hurt our children.

We’ve represented children who were molested by day care workers, teachers, janitors, security officers, youth group leaders, pastors, and others throughout the US. Many of these crimes were foreseeable and preventable had the businesses or churches taken the proper steps to ensure the safety of the children. Many businesses have a two-adult rule, where every child is always in the presence of two adults.

If your child was molested in Florida and you want to know your rights, call us at (800) 337-7755 for a free consultation. You may still pursue a civil claim regardless of the outcome in a criminal case, as the focus of the criminal case is often on the criminal, while the focus of the civil case is often on the crime itself.

General Negligence Causing Injury To A Child

If your child was hurt while under the care of another, you may have a civil claim for negligence. Over the years, we’ve handled numerous personal injury claims for children who were hurt because of someone else’s fault. Some examples include:

A child getting hit in the head with a baseball bat while not wearing a helmet in a batting cage, where the parent of another child was in the batting cage helping the children. The parent let another child in the cage at the same time and did not make sure the batting cage was safe. Several posted signs made clear that only one person was to be in the cage at a time, and that all people in the cage must wear helmets.

A child was struck by a baseball bat during recess. A boy playing on the nearby kickball field was using a baseball bat to hit the ball right in front of the supervising teacher. The bat flew out and struck our client in the head, causing serious injuries.

A child was shot in the face with a BB gun which was laying around his friend’s house. His friend pulled the trigger and accidentally shot our client. We were able to get the friend’s parent’s homeowner insurance to cover the entire claim.

A child was shot and killed in an apartment complex. His mom filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the apartment complex for the wrongful death. A background of the property revealed that it was a high crime neighborhood and the property owner knew or should have known of the need to provide adequate security.

Proving the Business was Negligent

A business may be found negligent for failing to protect children from a foreseeable injury. To find a business liable for negligence in Florida, the parent must generally prove the following elements:

Duty of Care

You must first show that the business owed a duty of care to your child. In other words, the business had the legal obligation to exercise reasonable care for your child while she was in their care, or they otherwise voluntarily assumed a duty to care for your child.

By enrolling in daycare, for example, the facility generally has a contractual agreement to not only care for and supervise your children while on the premises, but also to ensure that the premises is safe from hazardous conditions.

Breach of Duty

Next, you must show that the business’s actions or inactions constituted a breach of that owed duty of care. This means generally that a reasonably prudent person in the same position as the facility or staff could have foreseen someone getting hurt by a dangerous condition at the business.

Say for instance, the only caregiver on duty leaves the playground to take another child to the bathroom. Your child was running and playing tag with another child when he tripped and fell. The caregiver may have breached her duty of care she owed to your son when she left him unattended.

Proximate Cause

You may have to show that the business’s breach of duty was the proximate cause of your child’s injuries, meaning that if not for the facility’s conduct, your child would not have gotten hurt.
Using the previous example, we can say that the caregiver abandoning her post and leaving the playground unsupervised was the proximate cause of your child’s injuries. Had she been there to supervise, she could have warned your child not to run because he could get hurt.

Actual Injury

Finally, you may need to show that your child was actually physically or sometimes mentally hurt. This can be shown through medical records and expenses.

As parents, we would do anything to protect our children from danger, and dropping your child off at daycare or leaving your child in someone else’s care should never constitute a risk to your child’s safety and well-being. You should never have to get that dreaded phone call.

Free Consultation for Child Injury in Florida

If your child suffered an injury, the Law Offices of Jason Turchin wants to help you. Our team of skilled Florida Negligence Attorneys can work with you and your child to get you the compensation you deserve. Call us today at 800-337-7755 for your free consultation.