When you go to civil court to sue another party, the issue is usually negligence. In a case where abuse in daycare has been allowed to go on, a lawyer may want to go to court alleging that the daycare facility was negligent in allowing the abuse to go on. If the jury finds that this was the case, they may award the party pressing the lawsuit a considerable sum of money to help pay for the pain and suffering the child was put through and any expenses the family was forced to bear because of the abuse.
What is Negligence?
When somebody is negligent, it means that they did not live up to reasonable expectations of their behavior in a given situation. When somebody is a licensed daycare provider or when a company is running a licensed daycare facility, the parents of the children who go to the facility have the right to expect certain things of those people. Principally, they have the right to expect that their children will be provided with competent and compassionate daycare services. This means, of course, that the daycare facility should intervene immediately if it seems that in abusive situation is going on.
There are plenty of cases where a daycare facility fails to intervene when somebody is being abused. There are also cases where somebody who runs a daycare facility is the same person committing acts of daycare child abuse. This can be a particularly dangerous situation, as the person committing the abuse is also in charge of running the agency and, therefore, can be much more effective in covering up their crimes.
It’s important to keep in mind that any instance of actually abusing a child is a crime. If there is abuse discovered in a daycare facility, law enforcement will want to come in and make sure that those who are guilty of any crimes against children are prosecuted. This may offer some comfort to the parents, but it doesn’t really offer anything of practical value. To make certain that the family has enough money so that they can take care of any needs that the accused individual has, pressing a lawsuit is oftentimes the best option.
Filing a lawsuit is a complex process and there is a time limitation on how long you have to do it after the abuse was discovered. Make sure you speak with an attorney as soon as possible to get your case started.