Child and Day Care Injuries & Deaths
Justice for Kids® protects children who die in hot vans, who drown or are beaten, catastrophically abused and injured at Day Care facilities.
- Confidential Settlement Reached in Death of Infant at Day Care Facility. After picking up a two-year-old child in a van one summer morning, the Broward County childcare center failed to conduct head counts and take attendance as children were entering the facility. Had they taken attendance and compared it to the transportation logs, as they are mandated by the state to do, the childcare center would have rapidly discovered that NS was still on the van. For more than five hours, no one noticed that he was unaccounted for and missing. It was not until someone picked up his backpack that they realized he wasn’t there. NS was found inside the van. Tragically, he did not survive. Entrusted with the most vulnerable, childcare facilities are governed by state or locally mandated standards to ensure the protection of our children and when they fail, they must be held accountable. We were able to reach a confidential settlement prior to initiating litigation.
Child Death Cases
Too many children are left in the custody of their natural parents or foster parents after state child protection agencies like the Florida Department of Children & Families, DCF, DCFS, Sheriff’s Department, and private providers have ignored signs of risks often referred to as “red flags.” In 2014, The Miami Herald published an investigative series in Florida called “Innocents Lost” concerning 534 children who died spanning several years – who didn’t need to perish. This happens through our states We, at Justice for Kids®, are child abuse lawyers committed to filing wrongful death lawsuits on behalf of the survivors’ parents who are innocent of wrong-doing and even siblings, where possible, to vindicate the voice of the children who died.
- Jury Awarded Father $4.5 Million in Damages in Wrongful Death Case Involving Broward Sheriff’s Office Christopher Nevarez, the father of Makenzie Nevarez, a 6-month-old baby girl who suffered catastrophic injuries and later passed away from blunt force trauma, has been awarded $4.5 million in damages in a wrongful death case involving the Broward Sheriff’s Office for failure to protect his daughter. Justin Grosz and Stacie Schmerling, partners with Justice for Kids® at Kelley Kronenberg, represented Makenzie’s father and grandmother in the case, which alleged that the child protection investigator, under the auspices of BSO at the time, could have done more to further investigate previous injuries and keep Makenzie safe while in the care of her mother and her mother’s roommate. Link to Results & Verdicts
- Foster Child Livestreams Suicide on Facebook. Child abuse attorneys Howard Talenfeld and Stacie Schmerling represented the estate of a 14-year-old foster child who died by suicide while live streaming on Facebook from her foster parent’s bathroom. The lawsuit, filed in the Eleventh Judicial Circuit in Miami-Dade County, FL, brought civil rights and negligence claims against Florida Department of Children and Families, private child welfare agencies, and foster parents for operating a system of care with insufficient therapeutic placements and a lack of services, and for failing to protect the child from abuse, neglect, and mental health deterioration while in foster care. Link to Result Pages.
- Case Involving Abuse and Drowning. In 2003, one-year-old Latiana Hamilton drowned in a bathtub, and her three-year-old brother was horribly abused by foster mother Lena Cumberbatch with a belt and ironing cord. Justice for Kids® attorney Howard Talenfeld was instrumental in filing civil rights complaints for her and her brother, paving the way for many other children to recover for their injuries. Substantial recoveries were made on behalf of these children. Link to Case on Result Pages.
- Lawsuit Against Private Child Welfare Providers and Individual Employees for Allowing Child’s Mental Health to Deteriorate. This lawsuit was filed in the Middle District of Florida against private child welfare providers and individual employees on behalf of the estate of a seventeen-year-old foster child who died while she was on runaway. The suit brought wrongful death and survival claims under state law causes of action and civil rights violations alleging the defendants allowed the child’s mental health to deteriorate while in foster care and encouraged her to run away. The case settled for an undisclosed amount. Link to case on Results Pages.
- Case Involving Negligent Investigation and Failure to Protect Children from Foreseeable Abuse and Neglect. This lawsuit was filed in Lake County, FL against DCF and private community-based child welfare providers for negligent investigation and failure to protect two young children from foreseeable abuse and neglect in the care of their mother and her paramour. Despite the high-risk factors present due to unexplained injuries to both children, the family was placed under Voluntary Protective Supervision with no court oversight. The family relocated from Osceola County to Lake County, FL and the case was closed without court intervention despite the significant risk to the children. Four months later, the boy, who was sixteen months old, died from abuse and was found to have numerous fractures in various stages of healing and a skull fracture. The girl, who was two years old, witnessed her brother’s murder and was also found with several fractures and other injuries. The case settled against DCF for sovereign immunity limits of $200,000 and for an undisclosed amount as to the private agencies.
- Teenage Child, Who Was Drug, Addicted Entrusted to a Miami Treatment Facility for Care and Treatment. Tragically, the child overdosed in the facility from drugs that he obtained because of lax and negligent safeguards from preventing children from bringing illegal drugs into the facility. Our investigator was able to interview and obtain statements from several children who previously were in treatment at the facility who would testify how the drugs were obtained.
- Settlement for the Family of an Autistic Child Who Was Over-Prescribed Psychotropic Medications and Died. The Autistic child’s family received an undisclosed settlement amount from a Miami-Dade, FL group home and psychiatrist who over-prescribed psychotropic medications resulting in the death of the child. Link to Case on Results page.
Protecting Abused and Neglected Children In Florida:
Negligent Fl Child Abuse Investigations Attorney
Fl Child Product Liability Attorney
Fl Child Drug Treatment Attorney