Michigan Daycare and Childcare Sexual Abuse Attorney

Your child said something, or someone else told you. What happens in the next few days matters to both the criminal and civil cases.

You can start with the provider’s own record. A licensed Michigan provider’s inspection and special investigation history is public and free to look up. The Child Care Licensing Bureau within the Michigan Department of Lifelong Education, Advancement, and Potential handles child care licensing, not LARA or MDHHS. Complaints go to that same bureau, online or at 517-284-9730.

Vahdat Weisman Law sexual assault attorneys represent Michigan families after abuse at daycares, child care centers, and licensed home providers. Call (734) 469-4994 for a free, confidential consultation. No attorney fee unless we recover for you.

What to Do First

Report it. Call 911 for an emergency, and report to MDHHS Centralized Intake at 855-444-3911, open around the clock. File a complaint with the Child Care Licensing Bureau.

Get your child a medical evaluation, and ask whether a Children’s Advocacy Center is available. Michigan has a statewide forensic interviewing protocol: professionals who have completed the designated training should interview young children.

Let your child say what they say, write down their words, the date, and the time, and leave the questioning to the trained interviewer. That is not about doubting your child. Repeated questioning by a parent, a relative, and then a teacher before that interview can complicate both cases.

What the State Investigates, and What It Writes Down

Two investigations start. MDHHS’s Children’s Protective Services Maltreatment in Care unit investigates the maltreatment itself, and must make face-to-face contact with your child within 24 or 72 hours, depending on the priority assigned. The Child Care Licensing Bureau separately investigates whether the facility complied with the Child Care Organizations Act and the licensing rules.

If CPS does not substantiate, that is not the end of it. A licensing violation can be established anyway, and the burden of proof is not the difference. Under MCL 722.622(n), a confirmed CPS case is one in which a preponderance of the evidence establishes abuse or neglect, the same standard that governs tort liability. Whether an agency determination carries over is a collateral estoppel question, and Michigan applies estoppel to proceedings that were adjudicatory in nature, subject to review, and intended to be final (Holton v Ward, 303 Mich App 718, 731-732 (2014)).

The two files are not equally easy to get. MCL 722.627(1) makes CPS written reports, documents, and photographs filed with the department confidential and releasable only to the persons and entities the statute lists, so it is reached through an authorized recipient or through discovery. Licensing reports not already posted can be requested from the Bureau. Preservation letters should go to both agencies promptly.

What the Daycare Was Required to Do

Staffing ratios for child care centers are set by administrative rule, R 400.8222(4), effective May 7, 2025, and apply within each room or well-defined space:

That table is the general rule, not the whole rule. Small-capacity centers are exempt from most of the subrule and generally run one caregiver for every six children, maximum group size 20, and separate provisions govern mixed-age groups, sleeping children, children under 30 months, and GSRP-only programs. What matters is the ratio that applied to your child’s room at that hour.

Training and supervision. Under R 400.8216(2), program staff and unsupervised volunteers must complete specified training within 30 days of first being present at the center and before caring for children, including training in preventing child maltreatment and in recognizing and reporting abuse and neglect. R 400.8213(1) sets the ongoing duty to provide appropriate care and supervision.

Background checks are both fingerprint-based and name-based: Michigan State Police and FBI fingerprint checks, the national and Michigan public sex offender registries, the child abuse and neglect central registry, and the department’s disciplinary action database. Residence outside Michigan in the preceding five years adds a criminal history and child abuse registry check for each non-NFF state and a National Sex Offender Public Website search, with an equivalent-record and self-certification procedure for foreign residence. They apply to licensees, adult household members, program directors, child care staff including contract and self-employed individuals, and volunteers with unsupervised access.

A check that was never run, or an out-of-state history never requested, is a departure from a written requirement. The file either shows it or it does not.

Mandatory reporting. Regulated child care providers are enumerated mandatory reporters under MCL 722.623. Subsection (1)(a) requires an immediate report to centralized intake by telephone or, if available, through the department’s online reporting system, with a written report to follow. For center staff and volunteers, the telephone-then-written-within-72-hours sequence is at R 400.8213(1)(c). The trigger is “reasonable cause to suspect child abuse or child neglect,” not certainty.

MCL 722.633(1) makes a person required to report who fails to do so “civilly liable for the damages proximately caused by the failure,” and subsection (2) makes a knowing failure a misdemeanor.

That civil liability is narrow. It reaches only the identified child about whom the report should have been made, so a report missed as to one child creates no liability to a child harmed later (Marcelletti v Bathani, 198 Mich App 655, 659, 662 (1993); see also Murdock v Higgins, 454 Mich 46 (1997)). And a mandatory reporter cannot constitutionally be compelled to report his or her own abuse, so the claim cannot rest on the perpetrator’s failure to report himself (IS v Crestwood School District, published December 16, 2024).

MCL 722.625 gives immunity from civil and criminal liability to a person who makes a report in good faith, with good faith presumed, for acts done in accordance with the Child Protection Law. It does not extend to a negligent act causing personal injury or death, or to physician malpractice resulting in injury or death.

When the Daycare Itself Can Be Held Responsible

The daycare is not responsible simply because it employed the person who hurt your child. Michigan declined to adopt the aided-by-the-agency exception (Zsigo v Hurley Medical Center, 475 Mich 215 (2006)). An assault for the employee’s own purposes ordinarily falls outside the scope of the employer’s business, so a daycare is usually reached through its own conduct, though that rule does not preclude vicarious liability in every instance (Hamed v Wayne County, 490 Mich 1 (2011)).

What the daycare itself did, or failed to do, is the case. Michigan requires reasonable care in hiring and retention, with liability turning on whether the employer knew or should have known facts showing a relevant dangerous propensity; even a violent criminal record does not automatically establish negligent hiring (Hersh v Kentfield Builders, Inc., 385 Mich 410 (1971)). Lewd comments alone did not make a rape reasonably foreseeable absent a prior criminal or violent history or an unmistakable particularized threat (Brown v Brown, 478 Mich 545 (2007)). Hamed, relying on both, framed foreseeability around actual or constructive knowledge of prior similar conduct and of the employee’s propensity to act on it. The knowledge must connect to the harm that occurred.

So the theories that reach a facility are negligent supervision, where ratio, training, or unsupervised-access rules were broken, and that created the opportunity; negligent hiring, where a required check was not run or a disqualifying result ignored; negligent retention, where prior complaints existed, and nothing changed; and failure to report, within the limits above.

Whether There Is Insurance to Pay

It comes up most often where the provider is a licensed home, because family and group child care homes are businesses run out of a residence. A homeowners policy may contain a business pursuits exclusion, and whether it reaches a child care injury depends on that policy’s wording and on any daycare endorsement or commercial policy the operator bought. Intentional act exclusions raise the same question, and the answer can decide whether coverage reaches a negligent supervision claim against a non-offending operator.

Michigan reads these provisions as written: Auto-Owners Ins Co v Churchman, 440 Mich 560 (1992), and Allstate Ins Co v Freeman, 432 Mich 656 (1989), each turned on the particular policy language before the court. What a given policy covers can only be established by locating and reading it, and coverage may not exist at all.

How Long You Have to Bring a Claim

No criminal charge or conviction is required. MCL 600.5805(6) gives a 10-year period to sue for damages sustained because of criminal sexual conduct.

Because your child was a minor, MCL 600.5851b allows an action before the later of age 28 or three years after the individual discovers, or through the exercise of reasonable diligence should have discovered, both the injury and its causal relationship to that conduct. That branch runs from reasonably discoverable knowledge, not actual knowledge. Claims already time-barred before June 12, 2018 were not revived (McLain v Roman Catholic Diocese of Lansing, 514 Mich 1 (2024)); claims still alive on that date do get the age-28 extension (MI v Grace Christian Reformed Church of Grand Rapids, Docket No. 373022 (Mich Ct App, July 14, 2026), published). A motion for reconsideration was pending there as of September 2026. Under MCR 7.215(C)(2), a published opinion is binding notwithstanding further proceedings, so the holding governs for now, though the posture is not final.

Where the child was very young, the outside deadline is often years away, but the evidence does not keep: staff turns over, records fall under retention schedules, and other adults’ recollections are best captured while events are recent.

The 2018 revival provision, MCL 600.5851b(3), was a narrow 90-day window for a specified class of previously barred claims, and it closed long ago. Packages to extend these periods have passed the Michigan Senate and been introduced in the House, but none has become law. No revival window is open now.

Why Choose Vahdat Weisman Law?

These cases are built on records: the licensing and special investigation history, the background check file, the staffing logs for the hours in question, prior complaints, and the facility’s own incident reports. The civil case runs alongside the criminal investigation and forensic interview, not across them. Because Zsigo, Hersh, Brown and Hamed set real limits on what can be brought against an institution, we answer that at your first meeting.

From our Livonia office, we represent families throughout Michigan. Founding partners Kara E. Weisman and Jordan S. Vahdat have each been honored as Super Lawyers Rising Stars. Our attorneys are members of the State Bar of Michigan and active in the Michigan Association for Justice. We advance case costs, we work in English and Spanish, and we are available 24/7.

Frequently Asked Questions

• My child is three and cannot really explain what happened. Is there a case? A case does not depend on a detailed narrative from your child. Forensic interviews, medical findings, staffing records showing who had unsupervised access, other children’s disclosures, and the facility’s complaint history can all provide evidence.
• Should I pull my child out and stay quiet until this is over? Your child’s safety and care come first, and that decision is yours. We do not recommend accepting an internal resolution from the facility, signing anything they present, or agreeing not to discuss the matter.
• Will my child have to testify? Often not, and when testimony is needed, procedures are designed to limit the burden on your child. What it requires depends on the court, the criminal matter’s posture, and the evidence available.

About the Author

Kara E. Weisman is a founding partner of Vahdat Weisman Law in Livonia and handles medical malpractice, wrongful death, civil rights, and personal injury claims. She clerked at the Ingham County Probate Court and for the Federal Defender’s Office for the Eastern District of Michigan, and is admitted in all Michigan state courts and in the Eastern and Western Districts of Michigan.

Talk to a Michigan Daycare Abuse Lawyer

If your child was abused at a Michigan daycare or child care home, call Vahdat Weisman Law at (734) 469-4994 or contact us online. The conversation is free and confidential. Available 24/7, serving all of Michigan, with Spanish-speaking staff. See also our child sexual abuse and school and teacher sexual abuse pages.

Dedicated to Justice. Devoted to You. Winning for Your Future.

Reviewed by Kara E. Weisman, Vahdat Weisman Law. Last reviewed September 2026.

This information is for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Every case is unique, and prior results do not guarantee future success.