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Teachers and Tort Liability

Teachers and Tort Liability. Torts--Civil Wrongs . Intentional Interference (most hazing would fit this category). Strict Liability --sometimes also referred to as non-feasance--failure to take precautions or to warn Negligence --failure to take reasonable care.

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Teachers and Tort Liability

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  1. Teachers and Tort Liability

  2. Torts--Civil Wrongs • Intentional Interference (most hazing would fit this category). • Strict Liability--sometimes also referred to as non-feasance--failure to take precautions or to warn • Negligence--failure to take reasonable care. • Most of what is talked about in education is negligence

  3. Nonfeasance • Nonfeasance is a total failure to act • Failure to report for duty may be the biggest • While AWOL, students are injure trying to use farm equipment or sewing machine

  4. Misfeasance • “You tried, but you just plain missed.” • Faculty sponsor allows an initiation to go into hazing • That’s a miss that a competent person would not allow to happen

  5. Malfeasance • To do but to do badly. • Like squirting fire extinguisher dust in students’ eyes while trying to put out a trash can fire. • Reasonable person would have taken precautions

  6. Sovereign Immunity • Sovereign Immunity comes from the old English idea of the Divine Right of Kings • “The King can do no wrong.” • There is less and less sovereign immunity as time goes on. • A teacher’s sovereign immunity exists so long as he is abiding within school policy.

  7. Know the policies! • The minute a teacher or administrator gets outside of school policy, he becomes personally liable for any act of negligence. Floresv. Edinburg--sue the office, not the person.

  8. Do private schools have sovereign immunity? • No • Calhoun v. Pasadena ISD • Private schools aren’t run by “the king” (the government)

  9. Assumption of risk • There is some assumption of risk in certain activities--shop classes, athletics, field trips. • Assumption of risk not valid in a required course--Flores v. Edinburg

  10. Where some degree of immunity exists • National and state government • Elected public officials • Charitable organizations • Children 1 to 7 years old • The legally insance • These immunities are eroding daily

  11. Civil Rights Cases • Wood v. Strickland (95 U. S. 992, 1975) board members cannot enjoy absolute immunity from prosecution for civil rights violations under section 1983 of the Civil Rights Act.

  12. What about those parent permission slips? • Barely worth the paper they are printed on (Whittinhton v.Sowela TechnicalInstr., 438 So. 2d 302, La. 1983) • Parents can’t sign away children’s rights

  13. Does sovereign immunity apply to transportation? • No. No state in the country requires that districts transport students. • Districts take this upon themselves. • Molitor v. Kaneland

  14. Practical advice • Don’t be hauling students around in your personal automobile. That’s really asking for it. • More advice. If you are coaching or band directing, you have your hands full without driving the bus home as well. • One year in Texas, all 12 bus fatalities fit this scenario. All of them.

  15. Districts renting property • Does a district lose its sovereign immunity when it rents buses, auditoriums, etc.? • Yes--Sawaya v.Tucson--propriety role--especially if any profit is being made.

  16. A test case: • May an injured spectator sue a school district for damages done in the natural failure of a facility (bleachers) when no proprietary role exists? • No--Richards v School District ofBirmingham, Michigan.

  17. A Closing Note • Board members in Arkansas enjoy some degree of immunity from tort prosecution in their roles (ACA 21-9-302). And school employees enjoy some relief under this sovereign immunity. • But take all reasonable precautions.

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