Staff crisis in daycare centers
Howard Milbert, executive director of the Ossining Children’s Center, discusses the funding challenges facing child care providers and families.
A mother from Detroit has sued a daycare center, claiming her daughter died as a result of injuries she sustained while trapped alone between a wall and a bed for hours.
The wrongful death lawsuit alleges that a young employee at Detroit’s Little Learners Village of Love placed 1-year-old Marleigh Elliot in an adult bed to sleep one night in February 2023. Hours later, the lawsuit says, Marleigh was found unconscious and not breathing. The lawsuit alleges that the employee — described as the owner’s teenage daughter and the only employee on duty that night — did not perform CPR or call 911.
Instead, the lawsuit says, she drove Marleigh to a hospital, where the child was diagnosed with severe brain damage after being deprived of oxygen for 30 to 40 minutes; she died about two months later.
The lawsuit was filed last week by Marleigh’s mother, LaShawnteria Burton, in Wayne County District Court against Little Learners Village of Love LLC, owner LaToya Moore, and her daughter, accusing them of negligence and recklessness. She says the company “allowed and condoned unsafe child care practices, including failing to ensure that infants slept in approved cribs rather than adult beds.” Burton is seeking more than $10 million in damages.
Attempts to reach Moore for comment were unsuccessful.
The lawsuit also alleges that the company operated “under the guise of a state-certified child care provider” but did not have the required license.
Mike Morse, whose law firm is representing Burton, called it “a sad, tragic, horrific case,” adding that her client believed she was leaving her child in the care of a licensed, responsible daycare center. “But that was clearly not the case and they placed the baby in an adult bed.”
The complaint lists the daycare’s address as a house on Manor Street in Detroit and says the business provides 24-hour child care. A spokesman for the Michigan Department of Lifelong Education, Advancement, and Potential told the Free Press this week that the state’s child care licensing board has not issued a license to a provider at that Manor Street address.
More: Inside Detroit’s 24-hour child care: A fragile lifeline for working parents: A fragile lifeline for working parents
According to the lawsuit, Burton dropped her daughter off at Little Learners Village of Love at 9 p.m. on February 20, 2023, on her way to work the night shift. The lawsuit states that Moore’s daughter placed the child in an adult bed upstairs and then went downstairs, where she left her unattended for hours.
At around 2 a.m., the lawsuit says, Moore’s young son, who was also home, found Marleigh trapped between the bed and the wall, and she was “shaking, blue and not breathing.”
According to the lawsuit, she died on June 29, 2023.
The lawsuit alleges that Moore was not present when her daughter was caring for Marleigh, that she did not ensure that an employee was available to perform CPR in the event of an emergency, and that she “failed to train and supervise her teenage daughter and her only employee.”
Morse said Marleigh’s family “hasn’t recovered from this yet.”
Licensed child care facilities can be found through the state’s Child Care Hub Information Records Portal.
Contact Gina Kaufman: [email protected]