According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), drivers in the US were involved in 340,039 fatal motor vehicle traffic crashes from 2004 to 2013. Of those, .4%, or 1,214, was classified as “school-transportation-related.” NHTSA reported that on average, approximately 134 people die each year as a result of school-vehicle-related accidents. Of those, about 8% are when they are riding in the school buses. Schools and school districts can be held liable on a number of different legal grounds for injuries that are sustained by students. Apart from school bus accidents, there are other types of claims for school accidents or injuries, including negligent supervision, school sports injuries, school gym injuries, and student-on-student assaults.
Negligent Supervision
Whether or not adequate supervision was provided by the school is a question that constantly crops up when gets hurt at school. Without supervision, the school can be held accountable if the student gets injured and this category of personal injury claim is classed under the legal theory of “negligent supervision.” It is the duty of parents to supervise their children when they are under their custody. Similarly, it is the school’s duty to provide supervision when children are within the school premises. Therefore, when a child injures him or herself on a playground, or in a lunchroom, or in a classroom, or has been assaulted by a fellow student, or gets injured while rough-housing, a lawyer may conduct an accurate and comprehensive investigation. Such an investigation may expose certain realities such as the fact that the school was not following some of its own rules with regard to the adult monitor to student ratio. The investigation may also reveal that the teachers or monitors were distracted and there was no proper supervision, or that adequate safety rules were not set in place for students.
School Sports Injuries
If there is voluntary agreement by a student to partake in a sport that is known to be risky, the student cannot file a lawsuit against the school for the kinds of injuries that are inherent to the sport. For instance, if he is tackled during a football game or practice, the student cannot sue the school for the injuries that he receives since tackling is part of the game and one of the major risks of being tackled is that the player can get hurt. However, there are certain games or sports that do not pose risks of getting hurt or causing sports injuries and therefore, it is evident that the players have been ill-advised and poorly supervised by the school. In such cases, the players may sue the school for failing to maintain safety in the playing field.
School Gym Injuries
In most schools, gym class is compulsory and in such a case, the student has not volunteered to assume the risks of the gym. For this reason, gym accidents usually make better cases against schools as opposed to sports accidents where students voluntarily partake in a sport. Nonetheless, unless the school has been negligent and this negligence is the cause of an accident, the school cannot be sued for a gym injury. Some examples of school negligence causing gym accidents are inadequate supervision, failure by the gym teacher to provide adequate instructions to the students on how the gym activity should be performed, or provision of unsafe equipment.
Student-on-Student Assaults
When a student is beaten up, assaulted, punched or purposely injured by another student, the same question of whether proper supervision was provided by the school arises. The school cannot be held liable if the assault was unexpected and sudden. In such a case, it is evident that no amount of supervision could have prevented the incident from occurring. However, in some cases, even if the assault was sudden, the school can be held accountable since the assailant is known to cause trouble on other occasions, and the school has failed to properly discipline him. The school can also be held responsible because it should have been aware of past altercations between the assailant and the victim, yet failed to prevent the incident from happening. The main point is that it is the school’s duty to take preventive measures against injuries to students and this includes injuries because of other students. However, it should be noted that if the student voluntarily took part in a fight, the school cannot be sued for resulting injuries.
A Golden Law Firm
If your child has been harmed or injured in a school accident or any other incident, you should immediately contact one of the reliable and experienced personal injury attorneys at Rosenberg, Minc, Falkoff, & Wolff of RMFW Law at 212-344-1000. We have a long line of satisfied clients – we hope you are one of them.