Parents file suit against preschool over ‘hogtied’ two-year-old
Sometimes parents’ efforts to provide the best for their children go horribly wrong. Look at the recent case of parents far from Boston who chose a church preschool for their two-year-old daughter.
The California parents have filed legal claims against the school for failing to provide adequate security, among other allegations, after their daughter was “hogtied” by an unlicensed teacher who then sent the girl’s mother a photo of the trussed toddler.
The little girl was apparently being punished by the unlicensed teacher for failing to sleep during naptime at the Contra Costa County preschool.
The parents state in court documents filed on behalf of their child that the woman had an “untenable practice of ‘hogtying’ (i.e., binding the hands and feet with tightly applied masking tape) children who could not sleep during naptime.”
The school has more than 100 children in attendance, the complaint states.
The parents claim they were told by the principal administrator of the preschool that the facility meets all legal and regulatory requirements for preschools and “that only licensed child care professionals would care for their two-year-old daughter.” They were also assured “that no child would ever be treated with violence or in a manner that was otherwise illegal.”
They allege that the main reason the unlicensed teacher was hired was because the principal administrator had a sexual attraction for the woman. The woman is now pursuing legal claims against the administrator for sexual harassment.
The parents state that between October of last year and March of this year, their daughter was hogtied by the woman an unknown number of times for approximately an hour at a time.
The girl now has difficulty sleeping and experiences panic attacks, her parents say. She is also under psychiatric care.
While few premises liability cases contain these specific allegations, they often involve negligence on the part of the owner of a property for failing to take reasonable precautions to provide security on the premises.
Source: Courthouse News Service, “The Preschool From Hell,” Elizabeth Warmerdam, March 25, 2013
- Please see our Boston premises liability page for more information.
