Daycare Wrongful Death Lawsuit Filed After Two Year Old Dies in Hot Van

The driver at a Florida daycare center who left a two-year-old to die in a hot van has been charged with manslaughter, as both the driver and the daycare center face a wrongful death lawsuit from the little girl’s family. 

Amanda Lee Inman, 31, of Boyton Beach was charged last month with aggravated manslaughter for her role in leaving 2-year-old Haile Brockington strapped into a van seat for about six hours on August 5, killing her. Inman was a van driver for Katie’s Kids Learning Center in Delray Beach, Florida, whose four daycare centers are now under close scrutiny by state investigators and others.

Both the daycare center’s owners and Inman, who turned herself in, also face a wrongful death lawsuit from Brockington’s family, who accuse the driver and the child care center with negligence that led to the little girl’s death. The daycare lawsuit was filed earlier last month in Palm Beach Circuit Court by her parents, Mandus and Nelder Brockington and names Inman, Kathryn Muhammad and Barbara Dilthey as defendants.

According to the complaint, Haile’s death followed a series of transportation missteps by the daycare center. The family alleges that this was not the first time a child was forgotten in the van, and claims that there were times when Haile was forgotten at school even though her two sisters were brought home. The lawsuit also claims that Katie’s Kids staff once forged Nelder Brockington’s name in the transportation log.

The lawsuit seeks an unspecified amount of damages, and the parents have said that the lawsuit was filed quickly in order to force answers to come to light regarding the day their daughter died.

Inman has told law enforcement officials that she usually checks the van to ensure that there are no children left behind, but for some reason she failed to do so on the day Haile died. Her body was discovered in the back row of the van by a five-year-old who boarded the van to go home at about 4:15 p.m. that day, according to the police report. Her cause of death was determined to by systemic hyperthermia by the Palm Beach County Medical Examiner.