BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. — Brittany Henderson and Kelly Kalm are suing their children’s former daycare Tick Tock kid’s Academy on Merritt Island over an incident that occurred in February of last year.
They and their attorney shared a video of Henderson’s then 5-year-old daughter clearly acting out. But it’s what happened next that led the negligence lawsuit.
Henderson said, “She told me that she was locked in a storage closet and that she was locked in the back of the head and Kicked in the leg.”
On the video, Eyewitness News saw Henderson’s daughter being brought to the closet. Kalm’s son, who was three years old at the time, is non-verbal. He was seen sitting at the desk and appears to get hit after he picks up a book.
Minutes later, there will was another physical interaction between the boy and former employees Laura and Ashley Carmichael. Kelly Kalm is the boy’s mother. She told us, “I felt he was an easy target. They knew that he could not come home and tell me what they were doing.”
Both employees were fired by the daycare and DCF was notified. In its report, DCF noted Henderson’s child was in the closet for 20 minutes and what happened didn’t comply with the facility’s written disciplinary policies. But there were no criminal charges.
Laura Carmichael was arrested, but the state attorney’s office told us, based on the totality of the circumstances, there was insufficient evidence to file criminal charges. The office also said there’s case law that allows teaching personnel to discipline and “moderately chastise” students.
Attorney Kenechukwu Anusionwu, who represents Henderson and Kalm, told us, “Criminal liability is one thing, but civil liability is another. And civil liability was suing to recover money associated with the value of the damages. And that could be psychological and also physical.”
We attempted to reach the attorneys of record for the daycare and its former employees. We only got a response from Attorney Valerie Gatlin with the firm of Resnick and Louis. We were simply told, “We have no comment on active litigation.”
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