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Tort & Liability

Justin M. Harp
College of Southern Nevada
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Abstract

Today I explore where student and teacher responsibilities start and end. What counts as

negligent and foreseeable. I will be expressing whether the handling of the school was proper

and if not how it could have been handled better. Did the school knowingly expose the student to

danger or was it out of control due to the student acting out of his own volition ? Does the

student knowingly exposing himself to danger free him from the school’s responsibility. I will

find out if the student’s actions were predictable and if it could have been avoided. I use four

court cases and use these previous findings to decide which way the court should swing. What

happens if the school followed all the rules and procedures but the student still got exposed to

harm ? How will the court proceed if so ? Are there some things we just can’t avoid even if we

try ?
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Today I would like to present to the court that the school districts negligent handling of Ray

Knight exposing him to harm. I want the jury to distinguish as to whether there was negligence

involved, foreseeable danger and if the student knew of the risks of his actions.

Ray Knight is a student who was not following the rules as shown by his suspension. He is a

student who will commit misdeeds and always expose himself to self harming actions. The

school knew this fact when they handed him his suspension letter but yet they still choose not to

call the parents knowing that this student cannot be trusted. Not only that but it is required that

they do call and they did not. The dangers of their action was foreseeable and thus prove that

their actions are negligent. To prove my point I will use the case Collette v. Tolleson Unified

School District (2002) in which the school let out students during their lunch break. The students

only had little time to procure their lunches and thus were in a rush. The school which is not

allowed to let students out without the principal or vice principals go went ahead in their decision

and caused the students harm. They knew that the students would rush and the fact that the

danger was foreseeable made this act negligent same as this case.

Another case I would like to bring up is Tackett v. Pine School District (2002). The teacher saw

the equipment and approved for the students to go near and possibly interact with the equipment.

One of the equipment was not under the proper safety equipment and thus led to the

endangerment of a student. Thus the teacher knowingly led the students to a possibly dangerous

situation and should have expected the students action. Knowing that Ray Knight had a

suspension should lead the school to believe that he needs supervision and cannot be trusted to
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not expose himself to harm. The teachers knew that not calling the parents could lead him to a

dangerous situation in which the parents believed their children to be supervised. I will now hand

this case to the defense team.

We cannot predict the actions of this student and or his friend that has accidentally harmed him.

The other victim had a gun which was an unknown fact and this leads us to believe that we could

not have prevented this and so this is not negligence. To strengthen my case I would like to call

up the details of Bonamico v. City of Middletown (1998) in which a student who had hid a bean

in his pocket decided to throw it at a fellow student. The teacher was not supervising at the time

but the fact that her presence could not have altered what happened let her go scott free. What

happened was random and we could not have predicted this sad event in any way and we could

not possibly know the parent’s actions if they were informed of this suspension.

Most importantly is that the student knew of the danger he was exposing himself to. By not

informing his parents and going without adult supervision would lead to harm. His friend for

who knows what reason is not working or at school is obviously a character of bad moral not

mentioning that he had access to a gun. The student should know that this person was dangerous

and he knowingly exposed himself to this danger. This is the same as in the case with Brahatcek

v. Millard School District (1979) in where the student was playing a sport without regard to his

own safety when he knowingly committed actions that put himself in danger. He knew the

consequences of his action and he sadly paid the price for not heeding instructions and exposing

himself to danger of his own volition.

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The prosecution would like to say that the cases of the defense are of a different matter. Here the

risks were foreseeable letting a student of bad morals were left to his own devices without the

parents knowing so. Not only was it foreseeable but the administration also knew the dangers of

letting Ray Knight go about his own business unsupervised. We do not know what actions the

parents would have took like the defense said but we do know that their actions would not be the

same if they were informed of their son’s suspension. The point that the student willingly

exposed himself to danger is irrelevant as this would have a lower chance of happening if the

parents knew of said suspension. I ask of the court that this school be punished for their negligent

handling of this poor student.

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References :

Collette v. Tolleson Unified School District, 214 U.S. (2002)

Bonamico v. City of Middletown, No. Cv 94 0074041 S (Jun. 4, 1999) , 1999 Conn. Super. Ct.

7333 ( Conn. Super. Ct. 1999 )

Tackett v. PINE RICHLAND SCHOOL DIST. , 793 A.2d 1022 (2002)

Brahatcek v. Millard School District, 202 Neb. 86, 273 N.W.2d 680 (1979)