Lawsuit says California childcare worker threw toddler, causing brain injury

A California family has sued the Bay Club in El Segundo, saying surveillance video shows a childcare worker lifting their 23-month-old son over her head and dropping him onto a hardwood floor. The complaint says the child, identified in court papers as C.K., suffered a traumatic brain injury, and the case raises a sharper question about what parents are buying when they leave a toddler in a private gym’s care.

The suit stems from an incident on March 17, 2025, at the Los Angeles-area club’s child care program. Court filings say the employee released C.K.’s hands while he was above her head, leaving him roughly 6 feet above the ground before he fell to the floor and the employee landed on top of him. The boy was later taken to the emergency room and diagnosed with a concussion, traumatic brain injury and facial abrasions.

The family says the consequences have not ended. More than a year later, the complaint says C.K. continues to experience symptoms, including hearing loss. That allegation pushes the dispute beyond a single moment of alleged abuse and into the long-term costs of injuries that can follow a child out of a club, an exam room and back home.

The lawsuit also accuses the Bay Club of trying to soften what happened. According to the filing, the club told the parents an employee had fallen while squatting and that the child had been only about 1.5 feet above the ground when he fell. The complaint calls that account intentionally false and misleading, and uses the video description to argue that the parents were not told the truth about how the injury occurred.

At the center of the legal fight is licensing. Gym daycare programs are typically exempt from California child care licensing rules when parents are required to stay onsite. But the complaint says the Bay Club should have been licensed by the California Department of Social Services because parents were able to leave the premises to go to the nearby Manhattan Country Club. If that argument holds, the case could test whether private fitness clubs that allow parents to step away should face the same staffing, training and monitoring standards as licensed day care centers.

The lawsuit leaves the Bay Club facing both a child injury claim and a regulatory one: whether a child care room inside a private club is treated as a convenience for members or as a service that demands the same oversight as formal child care.