The document discusses a case involving bullying at Russellville Middle School, where a serious altercation between two students resulted in one being injured and hospitalized. It covers the legal implications of tort liability for schools and teachers, particularly regarding negligence and the duty of care educators owe to students. Additionally, it outlines various defenses against negligence claims and emphasizes the importance of managing risks to avoid potential lawsuits.

1. Chapter 10

2. Case Study
Russellville Middle School Principal Paige Littleton
was aware of the feud between Buffy McGuire and
Kathy Harris.
Buffy’s mom complained numerous times about the
mistreatment of Buffy and Kathy’s bullying.
One teacher said, “did their best to make life
miserable for Buffy.”
Paige spoke with both girls, referred them to
counseling, and made an effort to keep the peace.
However, Buffy and Kathy have a fight, Kathy uses a
5in pocketknife, and Buffy is seriously injured.

3. Case Study
Buffy is hospitalized for her injuries and “trauma.”
Principal Littleton learns later that day that Buffy’s
parents retained legal counsel.
Is it conceivable that Buffy and her parents could sue
Kathy and her parents?
Can Buffy sue the school district?
Do schools and districts have any liability for injuries
suffered by one student at the hands of another?

4. Leadership Perspectives
ISLLC Standard
Tort Liability
Standard 3C, calls for school
Tort liability is one way
leaders who promote and
protect the welfare and safety
of students and staff.
It is simply impossible to
protect students and
teachers from all potential
harm.
society ensures that local
schools boards affirmatively
meet their responsibility to
provide policy designed to
promote security within the
school community.

5. The Law Of Torts
A tort is a civil wrong that results in personal injury
or property damage, the compensation for which
serves around social policy.
As common law, tort law is generally court-made law,
rather than made (statutory) law. Schools, school
systems, individual teachers, and individual
administrators could all be either plaintiffs or
defendants in tort cases.

6. Negligence
Negligence is the most common of the tort.
Negligence-conduct that falls below the standards of
behavior established by law for the protection of
others against unreasonable risk of harm. A person
has acted negligently if he or she has departed from
the conduct expected of a reasonably prudent person
acting under similar circumstances.
There are five elements to the tort of negligence: 1.
existence of duty, 2. breach of duty, 3. cause-in-fact
causation, 4. proximate causation, and 5. damages.

7. Duty
The most common are the duties not to engage in
behaviors that would cause bodily harm to others or
damage to the economic interests (property) of
others.
Educators and educational systems stand in loco
parentis Latin for “in place of the parent” to the
unemancipated minors in their charge.
Educators have an affirmative duty to take reasonable
steps to protect children in their charge while at
school or at school-sponsored events regardless of
location.

8. Breach
When someone or some property is damaged, it is
not always someone else’s (or even anyone’s) fault.
A teacher/administrator very likely has a duty to
provide aid to a student who is in danger of being
injured.
A failure to exercise the affirmative duty of care that a
reasonably prudent teacher, counselor, or principal in
the same situation would exercise.

9. Cause-in-Fact Causation
Sometimes called the “but for” causation.
The injured person would not have suffered the
injury but for the breach. The breach must have been
in the chain of events that led directly to the injury.
A breach that occurs after the injury is complete can
never be a cause-in-fact of an injury.
Remember the logical fallacy post hoc, ergo propter
hoc. Simply because A precedes B, A is not necessarily
a cause of B.

10. Proximate Causation
Proximate causation has been reduced to a single
idea-foreseeability.
It asks whether a reasonable person, teacher, or
principal would have foreseen the injury.
One can argue that injuries are easily forseeable when
schools fail to fulfill their duty to maintain a safe
environment.
One can also argue that holding school districts
responsible for the malicious actions of students is
not sound social policy.

11. Damages
Damages are the physical or property damages
complained of.
The goal in calculating damages is to compensate
victims for their losses. Damages associated with
physical injuries tend to be things such as medical
bills, pain and suffering, and lost wages. When the
physical injuries are especially serious, damages can
increase very rapidly.

12. Defenses to Negligence
Contributory negligence
is an absolute defense.
If the defense is 99%
responsible for the
injury and the plaintiff is
only 1% responsible, the
plaintiff still takes
nothing.
Comparative negligence
seeks to proportion
financial responsibility
based on the percentage
of the damages
attributable to each
party’s negligence.

13. Assumption of Risk
Schools and educators frequently seek to obtain
express assumptions of risk from both parents prior to
potentially dangerous activities such as, athletic
competitions, travel by motor vehicle, activities off
the premises of the school, and other situations that
could potentially pose a risk beyond what would be
expected in an educational setting.
They seek the express assumption through liability
waivers, hold harmless, consent indemnity

14. Sovereign Immunity
We- “the people” are sovereign. The people of the
United States collectively are sovereign. Sovereigns
are immune to lawsuits in their own courts.
Sovereign immunity is a relevant defense for schools:
Most schools are in some way a part of state
government, and each state is sovereign.
It protects school systems (districts, boards of
education, county school boards, etc) and individual
schools from tort liability.

15. Sovereign Immunity
It does not protect individuals (teachers, principals,
and superintendents are not sovereigns).
Even if a school is negligent, it can generally be said
that the school is not responsible for compensating
the victims of its negligence.
Schools and school districts will be less likely
protected by the doctrine of sovereign immunity in
“premises liability.”
Land owners have a duty to property maintain their
premises, a duty to warn visitors of potentially
dangerous situations.

16. Statutory Immunity
A policy decision made by
the legislatures of many
states.
Educators are shielded
from liability when acting
within the scope of their
duties, exercising
judgment or discretion,
not using excessive force
to discipline a student, or
operating a motor vehicle.
The Paul D. Coverdell
Teacher Protection Act of
2001 (incl. NCLB ed. bill)
states that if teachers and
principals follow school
rules and act within the
scope of employment
responsibility, they will
not be subject to liability.

17. Intentional Torts
Battery
Assault
Intentional act that causes
An attempted battery or
harmful or offensive bodily
contact (Etheridge v. District
of Columbia, 1993.)
Two parts: (1) the batterer
must commit the act
intentionally and (2) the
batterer must either actually
touch the victim’s person or
cause someone or something
else to touch the victim’s
person
threat of a battery.
Attempted battery when one
tries to make harmful or
bodily contact, but fails to do
so.
Threat of battery, one
threatens to make harmful or
offensive bodily contact and
puts the victim in imminent
danger apprehension of the
contact.

18. Intentional Torts
False Imprisonment
False imprisonment is a
situation where one person
intentionally confines
another in a fixed space for
an unreasonable period of
time without legal
justification.
Loco parentis- the educator is
legally justified in confining
the child in reasonable
spaces for reasonable periods
of time.
Intentional Infliction of
Emotional Distress
This tort is reserved for
situations in which a
defendant has behaved so
maliciously that the “extreme
outrageousness” of the
conduct leads us to believe
that the defendant intended
nothing other than
intentionally interfering with
one’s peace of mind.

19. Managing the Risk of Tort Liability
Insurance- is part of the district management plan. It
is purchased at the district level. Transportation is
purchased through the district as well.
Strategic supervision plans are designed to improve
consistent and effective supervision of students,
especially in areas of the school where the potential
for injury is increased.
Facility Inspection and Management, the principal
should plan and supervise major infrastructure
updates, should walk through facilities daily, and
personally coordinate the master facility plan.

20. Court Cases
Gathwright v. Lincoln Insurance Co., 1985
Dadich v. Syosset High School, 2000
Kennedy v. Seaford, 1998

21. Summary
Tort law is not a fun topic, nobody likes talking about
getting sued.
A single serious avoidable injury on a campus has the
potential of ending a principal’s career.
Managing the risk of negligence is hard, intellectually
taxing work.
A principal can create a “culture of safety” on her
campus will go a long way toward becoming a
successful long-term principal.