Recent Recoveries
- $2,000,000Car crash — litigation settlement
- $1,750,000Slip & fall — litigation settlement
- $1,000,00018-wheeler — litigation settlement
- $850,000Tractor-trailer — litigation settlement
- $650,000Commercial collision — litigation settlement
- $650,000Trucking accident — litigation settlement
- $550,000On-the-job injury — litigation settlement
Prior results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome in any future case. Every case is decided on its own facts.
You left them somewhere licensed by the State of Texas, and you went to work. Everything about that decision was reasonable, including the part where you assumed somebody was watching.
Then you got the phone call, or you got them home and found the bruise, or they said something at bedtime that you have not been able to stop hearing since. And what you were told at the door does not quite fit what you are looking at.
Here is the thing worth knowing tonight: a great deal of what would prove this is already written down, some of it by the state and some of it by the center — and most of what the center holds may lawfully be destroyed in ninety days. Everything below is about that gap.
Free case review
A conversation with an attorney about what happened, at no cost and with no obligation. If there is no claim here we will tell you so.
No fee unless you recover
The fee is a percentage of the recovery, agreed in writing before we start. Case expenses come out of the recovery, not out of your pocket.
The records are requested first
The incident report, the sign-in sheets and the center’s licensing file, in the first week — most of them may lawfully be destroyed three months on.
Where It Starts
You are not arguing that they should have been more careful
In most injury cases the standard of care is argued about afterwards. In this one it was written down, numbered and weighted before your child ever walked through the door — and the state has been inspecting against it all along.
A licensed Texas child-care center operates under Chapter 746 of the Texas Administrative Code: several hundred minimum standards covering how many children one adult may be responsible for, what may be within a child’s reach, who may be employed and what they must be trained in before they are left alone with anybody.
Each standard carries a weight — Low, Medium, Medium-High, High — set by how much risk breaking it creates. Child Care Regulation inspects, and where it finds a breach it records a deficiency against the center by rule number. None of that requires anyone to have been hurt.
So a daycare claim does not usually begin with an argument about what a careful center would have done. It begins with a rule, a record of whether that rule was being kept, and five years of history saying whether it had been broken before. That is a very different starting point from most injury cases, and it is the reason the first week matters so much.
Parents come in apologising for making a fuss, and then we pull the center’s file and there it is — the same standard, cited twice, in the eighteen months before their child got hurt.
Aaron Genthe · Founder
- 01
The rule already exists
A licensed center is measured against several hundred numbered minimum standards, not against a jury’s later sense of what was careful enough. Your case starts from a written rule with a number on it.
- 02
The state already inspects it
Child Care Regulation inspects, and where a standard was broken it cites a deficiency and weights it — Low through High — according to how much risk the breach carried.
- 03
The file is already public
Five years of inspections, deficiencies and corrective actions sit on an open register under the center’s own name. You can read it tonight, before you speak to anybody.
The Timetable
Everything that proves it is gone in ninety days
Read the short gold bars against the long hollow one. The deadline everybody has heard of is not the deadline that matters, and on a child’s claim the gap between the two is close to two decades.
Your copy of the incident report is due
48 hours
Sign-in sheets, ratio records, the daily file
3 months
The Incident/Illness Report
3 months after the last day
The caregiver’s personnel file
3 months after they leave
Video of the room, where a center has any
no rule requires keeping it
Your own claim for what you have paid out
2 years
Your child’s own claim
to their 20th birthday
The public deficiency record
5 years
Where It Goes Wrong
Four standards, and the injuries each one prevents
Almost every daycare claim comes back to one of these four. Each has its own page here, because each is decided by a different set of records and a different rule.
- 01Not enough adults in the roomThe ratio table, and why meeting it is not the same as watching them
- 02The building, the yard and the equipmentOutlets, water, furniture, bottle warmers and the playground rules
- 03Who was allowed in the roomBackground checks, training hours, and negligent hiring and retention
- 04The standards themselvesWhat Chapter 746 is, how deficiencies are weighted, how to read the file
- 05Abuse by someone employed to carePhysical, sexual and emotional — and what to do in the first hour
- 06A child hurt in an after-school programDifferent rules, sometimes a different regulator, often a school district
When It Was Not An Accident
Abuse, neglect, and the first hour
Most of this page is about carelessness. This band is about the other thing, because what to do about it is different, it is urgent, and it does not start with a lawyer.
Report it before you do anything else
If a child is in immediate danger, call 911. Otherwise the report goes to the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services on 1-800-252-5400, which takes them around the clock, or online.
A medical examination is evidence as well as care
Take the child to be seen, tell the clinician what was said and what was seen, and ask that it be recorded.
What a center is required to have done
Ensure no child is abused, neglected or exploited in its care, and report suspicions to DFPS — both are High-weighted standards binding on every employee, not only on caregivers.
Why a child says nothing
Because they were told not to, because they were told it was a game, because they were told nobody would believe them, or because they do not have the words.
Case Value
What a child’s claim can actually include
“What is it worth?” is the question everybody means to ask and nobody wants to ask first.
What can be proved with paper
Documented, receipted, and the part a first offer is usually built around. On a child it is also the part most often understated, because the care that costs the most has not happened yet.
Medical treatment already given
Emergency care, surgery, imaging, follow-up, medication, and the share your health insurer will want back at the end.
Care your child will still need
Future surgery, therapy, orthodontics, assistive equipment. Valued over a lifetime rather than to the end of the school year.
Therapy and rehabilitation
Physical, occupational, speech and psychological, including treatment for trauma where that is what the injury is.
Educational cost
Tutoring, private or specialist schooling, and the support a child needs to keep up where a head injury has changed how they learn.
What it costs the household
Time taken off work to care for and transport an injured child, and the adaptations a serious injury requires at home.
What has to be argued
No invoice exists for any of it, and it is routinely the larger half of a child’s claim. It is also what an unrepresented parent is least likely to be offered anything for.
Pain and suffering
Including the treatment itself, which for a young child is often the frightening part rather than the injury.
Disfigurement and scarring
A burn or a laceration on a three-year-old is carried for eighty years, and revision surgery is usually a series rather than one.
Physical impairment
What the child can no longer do — which for a child means things they had not yet learned to do, and now may not.
Mental anguish
Recognised in Texas in its own right, and central where the harm was abuse rather than an accident.
Loss of earning capacity
A permanent injury sustained at four is claimed against a working life that has not begun. It is proved with experts, not with pay slips.
The First Week
What to do now
In order, and written for somebody who is angry, frightened and still has to decide about Monday.
- 01
Get your child seen, and say where it happened
Even where the injury looks minor. Head injuries, abdominal injuries and fractures in young children are all routinely missed on the day, and a child who cannot describe a symptom does not stop having it.
- 02
Ask for the incident report in writing, today
Texas requires one for any injury needing professional treatment, signed by the director, with your copy and your signature inside 48 hours. Ask by text or email rather than at the door, so the request has a date on it.
- 03
Write down what you were told, and by whom
The first account is usually the honest one and it is almost always verbal. Names, times, the exact words, who else was in the room.
- 04
Read the center’s public file
Search the center by name at childcare.hhs.texas.gov and read the last five years of inspections. You are looking for the same standard cited before, and for whether a corrective action was ever in place.
- 05
Report it to Child Care Regulation
A complaint triggers an independent investigation by somebody with a right of entry and a right to copy the records. It costs nothing, it does not commit you to a lawsuit, and it happens on a far shorter timescale than litigation.
- 06
Ring somebody before the ninety days run out
This is the step with a deadline on it. The sign-in sheets, the ratio records and the personnel file may all lawfully be destroyed three months on, and nothing stops that clock except somebody asking, in writing, that they be preserved.
The Process
What happens when you call us
If you have never worked with a lawyer before you may feel overwhelmed, or a little suspicious.
- 01
Free case review
You tell us what happened, what you were told and what you still have. We will tell you plainly whether we think there is a claim here.
- 02
The preservation letter goes out
Naming the incident report, the sign-in and ratio records, the personnel and training files and any footage, so that nothing is “routinely” destroyed after we asked for it.
- 03
We pull the public file, then the private one
Five years of inspections and deficiencies first, because it is open to us today. Then the records the center holds, and the state’s own investigation where one is running.
- 04
We value it over a lifetime, not a year
Future care, future schooling and lost earning capacity valued with experts, every available policy identified, and suit filed if the numbers will not move.
- 05
Your child gets paid, and it is protected
A minor’s recovery is not simply handed over. We go through the settlement line by line and set it up so that it is there when they need it.
Client Reviews
What our clients say about us
Published as they were written, by people this firm represented after somebody else’s negligence hurt them.
Rated five out of five stars
“From start to finish Aaron’s team were open and honest about everything, realistic about expectations and extremely patient with any questions or concerns I had. I feel that in the legal field, as a client, it can be easy to feel intimidated or unheard but with the Genthe Law Firm this was never the case.”
Nick V.
Rated five out of five stars
“I was well informed of each step and what to expect. Law suits can often be a lengthy process, Genthe was great about staying in communication of where we were at and expected time lines.”
Allison Sanderson
Rated five out of five stars
“He made sure I had the best specialists that covered every medical issue that I required… They took away my fear and gave me hope.”
Tracy Fortner
Your Attorney
The lawyer who works your case
This page has promised you a real attorney rather than a call center several times over. It is only fair to say who that is.
Founder · Trial Attorney
Aaron Genthe
A Texas A&M graduate who went into personal injury straight out of law school, Aaron spent years as a litigator at one of the larger firms in Dallas — long enough to build a reputation as an aggressive and effective attorney, and long enough to watch how easily a client becomes a file number at a firm that size.
He started Genthe Law Firm so that the person you speak to about your child’s injury is the person who tries it. These are the cases where that matters most: the records that decide them expire in ninety days, and an intake screener does not know to ask for them.
- Practising since
- 2015
- Cases handled
- Hundreds, in Dallas and across Texas
- Education
- Texas A&M graduate
- Fee
- Contingency — nothing unless you recover
Questions
Daycare injury FAQs
The questions parents ask on the first call, answered the way we answer them on the phone.
How long do I have to sue a daycare in Texas?
Two different clocks, and mixing them up is the most expensive mistake made on this subject. Your child’s own claim for their injury is suspended while they are a minor, so it generally runs until two years after their eighteenth birthday.
The daycare says it was just an accident. Is that the end of it?
No, and “accident” is not a legal answer. The question is whether the center did what Chapter 746 required of it — the ratio, the supervision, the hazard rules, the hiring — and whether the injury is one those rules exist to prevent.
How do I find out whether this has happened there before?
Search the center by name at childcare.hhs.texas.gov. Texas publishes five years of inspections, deficiencies and corrective actions for every licensed operation, free, with no account and no request to the center.
Should I report it to the state, or will that hurt my case?
Report it. An investigation by Child Care Regulation is carried out by somebody with a right of entry and a right to copy records, it costs you nothing, and its findings are useful to a claim rather than harmful to one.
What if the daycare has no insurance?
It is more common than parents expect. Texas requires $300,000 per occurrence, but a center may lawfully carry none if it cannot afford cover, cannot find an underwriter, or has already exhausted the limits of a policy that met the rule — it need only notify the state and tell parents in writing.
I signed a waiver when I enrolled my child. Does that stop me?
Usually not, and it is worth having read rather than assumed. A pre-injury release signed by a parent cannot simply sign away a child’s own claim, and no waiver reaches conduct beyond ordinary carelessness.
Can I sue if my child was frightened or humiliated but not injured?
Sometimes. Texas recognises mental anguish as a compensable harm in its own right, and abuse cases in particular turn on it.
What is a daycare injury case worth?
Nobody honest gives you a figure on the first call. On a child the largest components — future care, future schooling and lost earning capacity — cannot be valued until the treatment is understood, and on a young child that can take time by design.
What does it cost to hire you?
Nothing up front, and nothing at all unless we recover for you. The fee is a percentage of the recovery, agreed in writing before we start, and case expenses come out of the recovery rather than out of your pocket as we go.
Also Handled Here
If your child’s injury was something else
The neighbouring claims this firm litigates most often, including the two that most often begin in a daycare and end somewhere different.
- 01Traumatic Brain InjuryHead injury in a child, including without a loss of consciousness
- 02Slip and FallThe premises claim brought by an adult on the same facts
- 03Dog BitesChildren are the majority of serious bite injuries
- 04Wrongful DeathWhere a child did not survive, and who may bring the claim
- 05Car AccidentsIncluding a child hurt in a daycare van or on the run to a field trip
- 06Construction AccidentsSites adjoining a center, and equipment failures
Read more on daycare injury and negligence
- What Do You Do if Your Child Was Injured at a Daycare Center?The first week, step by step
- 10 Warning Signs of Day Care NegligenceWhat to look for before it becomes a claim
- Signs of Daycare Abuse and NeglectPhysical, behavioural and emotional
- Texas Daycare Lawsuit Timelines: How Long Your Case Might TakeRealistically, and why
- Five Myths About Daycare Injury LawsuitsThe beliefs that stop parents acting
- Proving Emotional Distress After a Daycare Injury in TexasThe half of the claim with no invoice
- Texas Daycare Licensing ComplaintsHow a complaint is actually handled
- What Are the Most Common Daycare Injuries?And which of them are preventable
