Liability in Child Injury Cases at Non-School Programs
In settings where children are supervised by adults, we often think about traditional settings, such as schools and summer camps. But these are not the only places where children participate in activities that require adult supervision and which can result in child injury cases. Some nontraditional settings include resort and vacation day care programs, community recreation centers, church-sponsored events, and Boy and Girl Scout activities, among others.
In these and other nontraditional settings, when children are involved and adult supervision is required, the organization has a duty to protect the children. Breach of that duty may extend beyond inadequate supervision or lack of supervision; staff and volunteers must be appropriately trained, and rules and regulations must be considered. If a plaintiff can show that poor supervision, inadequate training, or a lack of rules and regulations is a proximate cause of a child’s injury, the organization may be liable for child injury cases.
Importance of Training and Supervision Standards in Child Injury Cases
Schools and summer camps hire certified and trained employees, and they generally provide additional staff training in supervisory methods related to the age of the children and the activities in which they participate. Schools and camps also have formal child supervision policies and procedures, and they evaluate staff on their supervisory performance. Beyond schools and camps, however, many organizations with supervisory responsibilities for children are often much less rigorous in their methods.
Most frequently, these organizations do not have written policies and don’t provide training on how to keep kids safe from harm. Few provide adequate staff training and child supervision. These are often the elements that plaintiff will address in a lawsuit claiming negligence. Regardless of the organization, once it sponsors an activity involving children, it is responsible for their safety, which is incrementally enhanced with the level of appropriate training and supervision. In child injury cases in programmatic situations, approximately 80 percent of plaintiffs’ allegations involve negligent supervision.
Volunteers become an integral part of the work of most not-for-profit organizations and often fill a gap when paid employees are not available. At many organizations that provide services for children, volunteers conduct countless tasks. Churches often see themselves as “families” and sometimes may overlook the importance of training or supervisory functions of Sunday school teachers or of parents who organize and conduct activities such as Friday evening scavenger hunt. But all volunteers need adequate training.
For these organizations, external resources are available. GuideOne Insurance, for instance, offers SafeChurch training programs that provide church workers and volunteers important knowledge about potentially significant safety risks. These programs cover facility safety, transportation safeguards, and other categories. The company also provides informational resources about child abuse prevention, daycare and nursery safety, and playground safety.
To protect themselves from potential liability in child injury cases, many churches and other volunteer organizations have policies addressing the hiring of paid staff and the engagement of volunteers who work with and supervise children. For example, the Archdiocese of Baltimore requires each volunteer who has substantial contact with children at a parish or school to complete an application. Three references are provided, checked, and documented. A criminal history screening is conducted, and the volunteer must participate in training about child abuse and the protection of children. The archdiocese uses a compliance management system to track completion of these requirements.
Cruise ships offer an example of a nontraditional supervisory setting involving paid employees. Many cruise lines offer programs that provide young passengers an opportunity to explore art, play games, and to get acquainted with other children. Holland America Line, for instance, offers children’s programs during the day so that their parents can be on their own for a period of time. Most programming is during sea days, with late-night group babysitting available on some ships for a fee. On Carnival Cruise Lines, Camp Carnival is a fleetwide program for children who are 2 to 11 years old. Carnival also offers separate programs for children aged 12–14 and those 15–17.
These programs and others such as dance studios, karate centers, gym daycares, township recreational programs etc. are essentially the same in terms of duty as those provided in school and by other organizations, and the people responsible for children in their care have a duty to supervise them appropriately in order to protect them from harm. Cruise lines that offer youth programs generally accept all children who are potty-trained and meet the minimum age requirements, without knowing anything more about the child or his or her history of behavior. What parents don’t typically realize is that the cruise line can be held liable for child injury when supervision of these children is negligent.
Parents have a “contract” with caregivers and teachers to supervise and protect their children. In a child injury case for which I was engaged as the child supervision expert witness, a parent left his 7-year-old son in an afternoon program on a cruise ship, where about two dozen other children ranging in age from 7 to 10 participated in arts and crafts projects, a sing-a-long, snack time, and a nap. During nap time, when children were lying on mats on the floor and covered with light blankets, a 10-year-old moved over to the 7-year-old and sexually assaulted him. Testimony from other children in the room was that the person who was to have been supervising stepped out on deck to talk with another ship employee, leaving the children unsupervised for several minutes.
Determining duty was not an issue. Because the parent entered into a “contract” with the supervisor, and essentially the cruise line, that his child would be safe, the cruise line had a duty to protect. That duty required that a responsible adult be present to oversee the children during nap time and to intervene if any behavior on the part of a child might cause injury to another child. The program did have a policy that during nap time, floor mats were to be kept at least 18 inches from each other. This policy was practical, but it did not prevent a child from sexually abusing another. The only thing that would have prevented this was diligent supervision by a competent adult employee. Because the supervisor was not in the room for a significant amount of time, the opportunity arose for the 10-year-old to sexually assault the younger child.
Negligent supervision of children or lack of training for adults — be they paid staff or volunteers — may not necessarily create liability for an organization if a child is injured physically, is sexually assaulted, or dies while in the care of an organization. In child injury cases plaintiff must show that inadequate supervision or training is the proximate cause of the incident. The competence and training of the person supervising, the location of the supervisor at the time of injury, and the number of supervisors on duty are key elements in determining liability. The age and abilities of the child and the foreseeable dangers in the location of an activity are additional factors when determining liability.
Importance of Adequate Policies and Procedures in Child Injury Cases
As with schools, daycare centers, and summer camps, nontraditional organizations must consider policies and regulations when children are involved and supervised by adults. There are rules that may be developed into written policies made by the organization’s governing body; rules that are operational in nature, made by administrative and supervisory personnel; those that are considered ministerial acts for which there usually is liability; and rules of a specific activity that the children are engaged in, such as baseball, karate, or even crossing the street as a group. At this level, the supervisor or the person in charge of the conduct of the activity is required to see that the rules are followed.
The overriding assumption is that rules are developed to provide for the safety and protection of children, and that if they are not enforced, there is a greater possibility that a child will become injured during the activity. However, while there may be a duty to establish rules and regulations — either by statute or by virtue of a potentially dangerous situation — the mere fact that there were no rules or regulations is not negligence per se in child injury cases. As with lack of supervision, lack of rules and regulations must be the proximate cause of the injury.
One of the key responsibilities of supervision in any child-centered organization is to identify dangerous conditions or activities and then either warn of the condition or stop the activity. The supervisor must take appropriate action — and possibly create the rules on the spot — for the protection of the children. Duty to warn contemplates opportunity to know of danger (actual or constructive notice) and to have time to communicate it. Two children colliding while running on the playground may not rise to the level of negligent supervision in a summer camp because it’s not unusual for 6- and 7-year olds to run during recess on the playground. This would not be considered a dangerous condition or activity for which the counselor would need to warn or stop. On the other hand, when children are throwing rocks at each other, the supervisor has a duty to end the behavior and to warn children of the danger that someone can become seriously hurt. Then, the supervisor needs to keep diligent watch over the children and the area to ensure that the activity doesn’t reoccur. A supervisor should also prevent children from using defective equipment that would cause an activity to become dangerous. This might include a hazardous condition on the playground, unsteady gymnastic equipment, or a karate mat that has lost its padding.
Conclusion
The standard of care owed to children who participate in organization-sponsored activities must be consistent with legal standards and the standards of a reasonable person under the circumstances. In order to fulfill their mandate to see to the safety of children, nontraditional agencies that provide services for children need to know the requirements for reasonable and prudent operations. Anticipating dangers and correcting for them by warning participants and eliminating the dangers will help to protect children from harm. Training supervisors to keep an eye on children at all times and to anticipate that children don’t always act the way one might expect — they might run into the street or throw a rock at another child, for instance — will help protect children and the organization.
The standards by which nontraditional organizations operate are not always clear-cut. The methodical and systematized practice of safety education within the agency until all employees and volunteers are thoroughly educated and habitually perform their functions with safety as the uppermost concern will go a long way toward protecting children from harm and protecting the organization from costly litigation for child injury cases.
