Court Cases
The Sheehan Case, where Sheehan was injured during recess from a group of eighth-grade boys, where the teacher left the girls, including Sheehan, to sit on a long. The boys began throwing pebbles, the girls protested, and the pebble-throwing continued. Sheehan was seriously injured by a pebble that struck her eye. The school was sued on the grounds that the school and teacher were negligent in failing to supervise the children’s recess. The jury found it was reasonable to foresee that a student may be hurt as a result of lack of supervision in an athletic setting.
What is reasonable care?
Doe v. Bd. Of Educ. Of Memphis, where the Tennessee state court held that a school board was immune from liability when a school principal left a door unlocked and an intruder later entered the school building through his door and assaulted a teacher. The court held that in deciding to leave the door unlocked, the principal was exercising discretion in implementing a governmental policy, an act that should not be second-guessed by the courts.
What is governmental immunity?
Small, symbolic award (e.g., $1), where the plaintiff has been wronged but has not been able to show actual damages.
What is nominal damages?
A defense against liability in activities such as competitive sports. Based on the theory that people who know and appreciate the danger involved in an activity and voluntarily engage in it willingly expose themselves to certain predictable risks. Illustrated by a New York case where a student teacher was injured wile participating in a donkey basketball game, Arbegast v. Bd. Of Educ. Of S. New Berlin. The court ruled that she could not recover damages for her injuries from either the school district or the company that provided the donkeys because she admitted that she had been informed of the risk of injury and had voluntarily participated in the game.
What is proximate cause?
A sixth-grade student was injured in a wrestling match in a required physical education class, Toller v. Plainfield School District No. 202. The court found the teacher exercised the appropriate degree of care by teaching the rules of wrestling, demonstration maneuvers, matching students according to height, weight, and size, and closely supervising the students.
What is duty of care?
In B.M. v. State of Montana, the state court recognized a claim for educational malpractice based on negligent placement of a special education student. The student was diagnosed as mentally retarded and placed in a segregated classroom. After the child’s foster mother noticed a worsening of her daughter’s behavior, she filed suit alleging that the school had negligently misplaced the child. The Montana Supreme Court agreed, concluding that the school owed a duty of care in testing and placing special education students under the Montana State Constitution and administrative statutes and that the school had breached its duty in this case.
What is educational malpractice?
Also known as exemplary, these damages are awarded where defendants have shown malice, fraud, or reckless disregard for an injured person’s safety or constitutional rights. The purpose of this award is to punish the defendants for their wrongful actions and to deter similar actions in the future.
What is punitive damages?
In a Maryland case, parents sought to pursue educational malpractice claims against school officials for intentionally and maliciously injuring their child by furnishing false information regarding the student’s learning disability, altering school records to cover up their actions, and demeaning the child as in Hunter v. Bd. Of Educ. Of Montgomery County. While relieving the district but not the teachers of liability, the court explained that “where an individual engaged in the educational process is shown to have willfully and maliciously injured a child entrusted to his care, such outrageous conduct really outweighs any public policy considerations which would otherwise preclude liability to authorize recovery.”
What is willful conduct?
South Ripley Community Sch. Corp. v. Peters, where Peters, a ninth-grade student, lost four fingers working with a circular saw in an industrial arts class. He was cutting wood, one of the saw guards was broken, and his teacher was in an adjacent room supervising another class. The school was held liable for Peters damage because he was allowed to use machinery with an improper guard without direction supervision of the teacher.
What is liability?
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that local governmental units such as most school districts are “persons” and can be held liable under this section of an 1871 federal Civil Rights Act for violations of students’ and teachers’ constitutional rights. Such as Monell v. Dept. of Social Services of the City of New York. The Court has also ruled that local governmental units such as school districts cannot be held liable under this law for the mere negligence of their employees but are liable only when employees with authority act under an official policy, practice, or custom that shows deliberate indifference to an individual’s constitutional rights, like in Collins v. City of Harker Heights.
What is Section 1983?
The most common award meant to compensate injured persons for their actual losses, including for their medical expenses, lost salary, and other provable costs incurred as a result of the defendant’s negligence. Damages can be awarded for monetary, physical, or psychological injury.
What is compensatory damages?
In a Louisiana case, Spears v. Jefferson Parish Sch. Bd., a physical education teacher was found to be liable for a kindergarten student’s emotional injuries after the teacher pretended that he had hanged the student’s two friends. After the incident, the student developed a variety of psychological problems that medical experts identified as caused by the stress from seeing his “dead” friends.
What is mental anguish and suffering?
Miles v. Sch. Dist. No. 138 of Cheyenne County, When Miles was working on a project in Shop II class when she attempted to remove a piece of wood from an operating machine with her hands, contrary to safe practice. This resulted in two severed fingers and her instructor was sued for negligent supervision. Evidence indicated that the teacher had demonstrated the safe use of power towels, had assigned a safety booklet for students to read, had given a safety exam, and had watched Miles operate the machine safely. The court rules that Miles was negligent in failing to use ordinary care that a student of her age and maturity “would have used under like circumstance.”
What is contributory negligence?
As one court explained in a case where the school board and superintendent were found negligent in a retention of a teacher who sexually abused a student, a “school board has a common-law duty to protect others from the result of negligent hiring, supervision, or retention, which duty is identical to the duty upon private employers who hire, retain or supervise employees whose negligent or intentional acts in positions of employment can foreseeably cause injuries to third parties.”, like in Sch. Bd. Of Orange County v. Coffey.
What is negligent hiring?
Common-law theory they cannot be sued without their consent and should not be held liable for the negligence of their employees.
What is sovereign immunity?
Impairment of an individual's reputation may result in this.
What is personal humiliation?
In Rollins v. Concordia Parish Sch. Bd., where a nine-year-old girl broke her leg jumping off a merry-go-round, the court compared the negligence of the student with that of the school board. It found both the school board negligent in the supervision of the student and the child negligent in jumping off the merry-go-round. Since there was equal responsibility for injury, the court reduced the amount of compensation awarded to her by 50 percent.
What is comparative negligence?
Based on an objective standard. A 1982 Supreme Court case held that public officials “generally are shielded from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known”, as in Hawlow v. Fitzgeralad.
What is good faith standard?
Entities can be held liable if slanderous remarks are used and found to be harmful and/or false.
What is impairment of reputation?
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