Baltimore City Public Schools settled on June 5 a lawsuit filed on behalf of a girl who was bullied and so badly injured in a fight at Carver Vocational-Technical High School that she required surgery, WBAL-TV (NBC affiliate) reports.
The district agreed to pay the victim’s family $45,000, ending the lawsuit that stemmed from the fight five years ago. Prior to the fight, the victim’s family said she had reported several incidents of bullying to school officials, and the lawsuit charged school officials with providing insufficient supervision.
“There had apparently been negative interactions between these students before,” the city’s solicitor, George Nilson, told the TV station. “They were together in a room with a bunch of other kids described as very crowded. The allegation was there was insufficient supervision of adults and teachers, etc.”
Mr Nilson described the settlement amount as “sizable,” noting that school districts aren’t normally liable for spontaneous acts of bullying, like the fight that broke out in this case. However, the injuries involved broken bones and follow-up surgery and too few adults were in the area given the number of students, increasing the school’s liability, given the district’s prior knowledge of the history between the victim and the bully.
Legal tracks for bullying lawsuits
The number of lawsuits against school districts in bullying cases has risen in recent years. Lawyers started noticing the trend in about 2010, at which time more than 40 states had enacted bullying laws. An increased public awareness of bullying and its consequences has no doubt fueled the increase in lawsuits, as people feel they need to do something to prevent bullying.
The increase is also due, in part, to the many different ways the lawsuits can be filed. Usually, they’re brought under state tort laws, federal statutes, or constitutional theories like the 14th Amendment (due process or equal protection). Several lawsuits charge school districts using a few theories at the same time.
The Baltimore lawsuit described here claimed the school had a “duty of care” and that it was negligent when it shirked that responsibility. It can be very difficult to prove negligence, though, since courts have usually found that schools aren’t responsible for protecting one kid against the meanness of another kid unless they knew about the problem.
For example, a lawsuit against an Ohio student-athlete accused of sexually assaulting his basketball teammate was settled a few years ago with the family of the alleged bully, one day after a state court judge dismissed claims against the school district and a teacher that charged them with failure to supervise.
“The severe challenge we had was defeating sovereign immunity, but we had testimony that the coach was present during most of the conduct. We think that demonstrates knowledge,” Lawyers USA quoted Joseph Braun, who represented the victim’s family, as saying.
If lawsuits are filed under Title IX for sexual harassment or Title VI for racial harassment, the standards are somewhat different, though, making this a much more common route for plaintiffs who were victimized to take in court against schools. In most cases, if the victim can show the school acted with “deliberate indifference” and if the harassment is severe, the plaintiffs have a better case, although even the death of the victim doesn’t make a win in court certain.