A parent may have a New Jersey negligence claim when a daycare’s failure to supervise children, maintain safe conditions or follow another reasonable safety practice causes a child’s injury. Licensed child care centers must also follow state rules on supervision, staffing and other safeguards. A broken rule can help show what went wrong, but the claim still needs evidence connecting that failure to the injury.
The first steps are to get appropriate medical care, document what happened and preserve any records or video before they disappear. Filing deadlines depend in part on who operated the program and whose claim is being brought.
Key Takeaways: Suing a Daycare for Negligence in New Jersey
- A daycare injury does not automatically mean the facility was negligent. The claim must connect a failure in care to the child’s harm.
- New Jersey’s licensing rules can help identify supervision, staffing or safety failures at a licensed center.
- Parents can request certain licensing reports without filing a lawsuit. Other evidence, such as internal records or surveillance video, may take additional steps to obtain.
- A child’s usual filing period differs from the rules that may apply to a public program or to certain types of abuse claims.
When Can You Sue a Daycare for Negligence in New Jersey?
A negligence claim generally requires proof that the daycare owed the child a duty of care, failed to meet that duty and caused an injury with resulting harm.
For example, a claim might involve a child hurt after staff failed to supervise an accessible playground hazard. Evidence would need to show what staff knew or should have noticed, what they did or failed to do, and how that failure led to the injury. A licensing violation elsewhere in the building would not, on its own, establish the cause of a playground injury.
The child’s losses may include medical treatment, future care and pain associated with the injury. What an injury claim may be worth depends on the evidence and the injury’s lasting effects.
What Safety Rules Do New Jersey Daycares Have to Follow?
Licensed child care centers operate under New Jersey’s Manual of Requirements for Child Care Centers. The Office of Licensing within the Department of Children and Families oversees compliance.
The manual requires direct staff supervision of children, including outdoors, during rest and while walking through hallways. Centers must also use an approved method to track where children are while under their supervision, including during arrival, departure and off-site activities.
The usual staff-to-child ratios while children are awake are:
- One staff member for every four children under 18 months
- One for every six children from 18 months to under 2½ years
- One for every 10 children from 2½ to under 4 years
- One for every 12 four-year-olds
- One for every 15 children age 5 and older
Different ratios may apply during rest or sleep, but only when the manual’s conditions are met. Other rules address staff training, background checks and the safety of the facility. Whether a particular rule applies depends on the children and program involved.
These center rules generally cover programs caring for six or more children under 13. Registered family child care homes operate under a separate regulatory framework.
Common Forms of Daycare Negligence
A daycare personal injury claim may arise from:
- A supervision lapse, such as a child wandering away or reaching a hazard that staff should have addressed
- Unsafe conditions, such as damaged playground equipment or improperly stored cleaning products
- A staffing failure, including too few staff members directly caring for children
- A hiring or training failure that contributed to the incident
The circumstances matter. Even when an injury requires emergency treatment, its severity alone does not establish that the daycare did something wrong.
What Should Parents Do After a Daycare Injury?
- Get medical care appropriate to the injury. Tell the provider what you know about how it happened, and keep the treatment records.
- Ask the center for an explanation. Find out whether it prepared an incident report, request a copy and write down any account you were given.
- Document what you can. Photograph visible injuries, keep relevant clothing or other items, and save messages from the center.
- Request that evidence be preserved. If cameras may have captured the incident, ask the center in writing to preserve the footage, along with relevant attendance and staffing records.
- Report suspected licensing violations to the Office of Licensing. A licensing investigation is separate from a civil injury claim.
Licensed centers must report specified serious incidents to the Office of Licensing by the next working day after learning of them. Those include an injury under the center’s supervision that results in an emergency room or urgent care visit, hospital admission, a 911 call, or on-site or transported emergency care. The center must also submit documentation within one week of the incident.
What Daycare Records Can Parents Review?
Parents of enrolled children may ask a licensed center for its Office of Licensing inspection, violation and complaint investigation summary reports, along with letters of enforcement or other actions taken during the center’s current licensing period. The center must make those specified records available on request.
Office of Licensing files are generally public records that a person may examine, although laws restricting disclosure still apply. A parent can also visit the center during operating hours to observe its operation and activities without securing prior approval.
These rights can help a family learn about a center’s history. They do not necessarily provide access to every detail of a complaint investigation, confidential staff background-check information or all internal records.
What Evidence Can Help Prove a Daycare Claim?
Useful evidence may include medical records, photos, witness accounts, messages from the center and any available surveillance footage. Attendance and staff schedules may help establish who was supervising the children at the time.
Licensing records may also matter, especially if they document a similar problem before the injury. A prior citation does not automatically prove negligence in the current case; its relevance depends on what it concerned and how it relates to the child’s injury. Some records may need to be requested through the legal process.
How Long Do You Have to File a Claim?
For many ordinary personal injury claims, New Jersey pauses the filing period while a child is a minor. That generally gives the child until age 20 to bring a claim, although exceptions can change the deadline.
A parent who has a separate claim for losses caused by the child’s injury, such as medical expenses the parent incurred, generally has the same filing period as the child. There is an important condition: if an action is filed on the child’s behalf, the parent must assert that related claim in the child’s action or risk having it barred by the judgment. That is one reason to review New Jersey filing deadlines before filing either claim.
A claim involving a public program needs separate attention. The New Jersey Tort Claims Act generally requires a notice of claim to the public entity within 90 days of the claim’s accrual. A court may allow late notice under limited conditions. The Act also contains provisions concerning minors, so parents should not assume that either the ordinary 90-day rule or the usual age-20 guideline fully answers the question. Notice and lawsuit deadlines are separate issues.
Claims involving child sexual abuse can have substantially different filing and public-entity notice rules. A family dealing with that situation should have the applicable deadline assessed specifically.
Can Enrollment Paperwork Prevent a Claim?
An enrollment packet may contain a liability waiver or an arbitration clause. They do different things.
In Hojnowski v. Vans Skate Park, the New Jersey Supreme Court declined to enforce a parent’s pre-injury release of a child’s future negligence claim against a commercial recreational facility. That decision is relevant when reviewing a daycare waiver, but whether a particular provision affects a claim depends on its terms and the circumstances.
The court treated arbitration differently: an enforceable arbitration clause can determine where a child’s claim is heard without eliminating the claim itself. New Jersey courts have applied that distinction in later cases.
A settlement of a minor’s injury claim also requires court approval. Parents should have an offer reviewed with the child’s present and possible future needs in mind.
Frequently Asked Questions About Daycare Negligence in New Jersey
Can a waiver I signed at enrollment stop my child’s claim?
A pre-injury waiver does not necessarily prevent a child from bringing a negligence claim. Its effect should be assessed in light of New Jersey law and the agreement’s wording. An arbitration clause in the same paperwork raises a separate question about where the claim must be heard.
Does my child have until age 20 to sue?
That is the general guideline for many childhood personal injury claims, but it is not universal. Public-entity claims and certain abuse claims need separate deadline analysis. Even when the filing period is longer, evidence such as video and witness recollections may become harder to obtain with time.
Who investigates daycare safety violations in New Jersey?
The Department of Children and Families’ Office of Licensing investigates complaints involving licensed child care centers and can inspect facilities and review records. Parents may request specified licensing reports from the center or seek access to records maintained by the office, subject to applicable disclosure limits.
Can I accept a settlement offer from the daycare’s insurer?
A parent cannot finalize a settlement disposing of a minor’s injury claim without court approval. The family should also understand the extent of the injury and any likely future care before evaluating an offer.
Contact Brandon J. Broderick About a Daycare Injury
When a child is hurt at daycare, it can be difficult to piece together what happened while focusing on their care. Brandon J. Broderick, Attorney at Law can review the available medical and licensing records, seek to preserve time-sensitive evidence and assess the deadlines that apply to your family’s claims.
Our team handles New Jersey injury claims involving children. We work on a contingency-fee basis, so you do not pay an attorney fee unless we recover compensation. Contact us today.