Christian Wilson

Professor Nancy Webb

EDU 210-1002

23 February 2020

Portfolio #3 Tort and Liability

In the case of Ray Knight, the middle school student is being suspended for three days

because of numerous unexcused absences. The school would then proceed to send Ray Knight a

letter home to show his parents in order to inform them of the suspension, although they usually

are required to give parents a phone call and mail notice. However, it would later be discovered

that Ray never showed them this note and threw it away instead. One day when he was hanging

out with a friend during the first day of the suspension, he would be accidentally shot. Due to the

circumstances, would the parents be in any position to sue the school for liability charges?

In the case of Mastrangelo v. West Side U. H. School district, a young high school

student named Elge Mastrangelo is suing his school for negligence. Him and his classmates were

required to mix chemicals together that would create a compound for gunpowder for a grade.

Although this would be the students third time doing the experiment, it would go wrong when he

incorrectly mixed chemicals that looked very similar and were poorly labeled and shelved

closely together. This would result in an explosion that would blow off Elge’s left hand, injure

his right hand and left eye, and would destroy his right eye. Although he was in the room, the

teacher in charge did not supervise this dangerous experiment with strict care and merely left his

student to read the instructions to complete the experiment out of a textbook which left out a list

of things not to do during the experiment. The result of the case would lead to the court finding
the teacher and the school negligent. There was no contributory negligence found because of the

nature of the experiment being so dangerous, requiring strict supervision of the teacher.

In the case of Rollins v. Concordia Parish School Board, Lisa Rollins, a fourth-grade

student, had fractured her leg falling off the school merry-go-round. On this merry-go-round, the

girls playing on it would be spinning it way too fast with their feet. At 9:30am, Mrs. Linda

Green, the substitute teacher in charge of this class, would notice this. However, after calling out

to the students to slow down and get off, Mrs. Green would be distracted by two boys arguing

over a basketball and after walking twenty feet in their direction, Lisa would fall off and fracture

her leg. The court found Mrs. Green negligent because she abandoned a dangerous situation that

she had recognized and called out. However, the court also found Lisa Rollins to be guilty of

contributory negligence and reduced the charges of the teacher by 50% because she had tried to

get off the merry-go-round while it was still in motion.

In the case of Station v. Travelers Insurance Co., Geraldine Station and Amanda White,

two eight-graders, and their teacher Roosevelt L. Wilson, were preparing an experiment for a

science fair. The project was a turbine engine that required steam, and an alcohol burner was

chosen to create the steam. During the class before the exhibition day, the three of them were

testing their experiment to see if it still worked correctly with Mr. Wilson igniting the burner and

once they finished, he went back to his scheduled class, leaving the girls in the gym alone with

the experiment. Amanda and another eighth-grader walking by decided to try to fix a

malfunction in the turbine while Mr. Wilson was gone, resulting in the glass jar containing the

alcohol to explode, burning Ms. Station’s right hand, side, and right leg. The court found Mr.

Wilson guilty of full negligence because he did not make clear instructions not to light the burner
while he was gone, nor did he tell the girls to find proper adult supervision should they decide to

do so.

In the case of Connett v. Fremont County School District, John Forest Connett, a fourteen

year-old, was working in Mr. Blankenships study hall classroom with geo-blocks for one of his

assignments. Mike Degner, another student in that classroom, was trying to find the boiling point

of salt-water and sugar-water for an experiment in his upcoming class using an alcohol burner.

Connett expressed curiosity in seeing if the boiling points would change if he added alcohol to

the mixtures, of which Degner asked him to not tamper with the experiment. Despite receiving

no permission from the teacher and being asked not to mess with the experiment, Connett had

grabbed an alcohol can left in a sink four feet away, and poured what was left in the beakers,

breaking the glass and setting himself aflame. Mr. Blankenship was found guilty of negligence

not only because he was in an adjoined room when this event occurred, but also because he

failed to supervise a dangerous experiment where a foreseeable injury could a occur with

immature middle schoolers. However, due to the actions of Mr. Connett, he was also found

guilty of contributory negligence.

Due to the nature of Ray Knights situation, it appears that the school would be guilty of

negligence. This would be because they did not follow the required procedure to inform the

parents of their child’s suspension via phone call or mail notice, and sent the notice through the

student only. However, due to the actions of Ray Knight, he would be found guilty of

contributory negligence. This would be because he threw away the notice given to him that was

to be shown to his parents, leaving them unaware of the suspension, despite the school’s lazy

effort to inform them. Had his parents known of his suspension, perhaps he would have never

been at his friends house where he was shot, but this falls on the school as well as himself.