Children spend a lot of their day in or near their school. So it stands to reason they can, and probably will, experience the majority of their childhood injuries in this environment.
You obviously want your kids to be safe while they’re at school, but the reality is that even if you wrap your children in cotton wool, accidents will happen.
In the unfortunate situation where your child is hurt at school by another child, you will want to establish who the at-fault party is if you wish to make a claim or pursue a personal injury claim.
Private vs. Public School
The first area to examine is whether or not the school is a private or public school. Private schools can be treated as corporate entities, so you can claim directly against them.
A public school will be part of a school district, so you would need to bring a case against the school district and not the school itself. Regardless of what type of school your child attends, the school or school district has a responsibility to keep children safe while under the care of the staff, or what’s referred to as “loco parentis”.
Intentional Tort vs. Accident
There’s obviously a huge difference between an intentional injury and an accidental one. The reality is that most children rush through the early years of life at full speed, constantly acquiring “ouchies” they can’t explain. With that being said the school has a responsibility to provide acceptable standards of care and service for every child, so not all accidents should simply be overlooked.
If, for example, your child has suffered injury because of bullying, then this indicates intent. A proven case of bullying means you can not only claim for injuries against the parents of the child involved, but also the school itself. Under “loco parentis” the school has a duty of care to ensure that your child is not bullied, so it is possible to prove negligence on their part.In truly unfortunate cases you might even need to pursue a lawsuit against an adult who injured your child. This could be a teacher, or another member of the school staff or faculty.
Can you sue your child\’s school for an injury?
To do this you will need to obviously to establish negligence on the part of the school, and to what extent negligence is demonstrable. A perfect example of this is an accident on a school bus. This would happen off school property, but the school might still be the “at fault” party because they didn’t conduct a thorough background check on the driver, who turns out to have a number of DUIs on their driving record, for example.
In these situations you have to establish if the driver is at fault, or the school or school district. This can be a time-consuming and frustrating process.
The same process applies to your child being injured on a school playground. While this could be overlooked as just a “trip and fall” accident, what if the school was negligent in terms of maintaining safety standards in the playground? What if other children had previously also been injured, but the school didn’t remedy the cause of those injuries i.e. fixing the playground.
As you can see, a personal injury claim involving a school can be quite complex, especially when you’re having trouble identifying who is actually responsible.
That’s why it makes sense to seek professional legal counsel when considering a case of this kind.