Child Injured By Another Student At School - Your Injury Claim Options

If you learn that your child was injured by another student while at school, you probably have a lot on your mind. First and foremost is the health of your child, but once that has been cared for, you may turn your attention to the other student or the school staff. Can the school or the parents of the other student be held responsible for your child’s injuries? In today’s blog, we explain how you can go about collecting injury compensation if your child was injured by another student at school.

Injured At School – Who Is Responsible?

We trust school staff to keep our kids safe to the best of their abilities while they are at school. Schools have a duty to protect their students, and when they breach this duty of care, parents can sue the school for their child’s injuries. However, the mere existence of injuries does not mean that the school is inherently liable. Schools have a duty to protect students from foreseeable harm, so not only do you need to showcase that injuries occurred, but you also need to prove that the school did not take action to prevent a foreseeable issue from occurring.

There are a number of different ways you can work to showcase that the school failed to uphold their duty of care which resulted in foreseeable injuries. For example, if your student has complained about a specific student many times in the past, you’ve sent emails to the school and even met with the principal, and your child is still getting bullied, you may have a lawsuit on your hands if they are injured at the hands of the same child. Some factors that will be considered when determining if a school district should have been able to prevent foreseeable injuries include:

Did the school have adequate supervision?
Had the child previously informed a teacher about the student in question?
Had the parents previously reached out about an issue with this student?
Did the administration act on any previous complaints or issues?
Were the staff properly trained to handle student confrontations?

If you’re hoping to win a personal injury lawsuit against a school because your child was injured by another student, you absolutely need to have a lawyer by your side. Proving the existence of compensable injuries is easy enough, but you need to showcase, beyond question, that the school failed to prevent a foreseeable confrontation. You need a storyteller on your side who can showcase all the ways that the school failed to protect your child. Making this argument can be difficult for a parent who is emotionally-charged and lacking in legal experience, so do what’s right for your family and outsource the process to a professional. We’ve gone up against school districts in the past and won money for our clients, and we can do the same for you and your child.

It’s also possible that you could sue the parents of the child who injured your son or daughter, but know that these cases are typically harder to win and limited in their ability to win fair compensation. Besides proving that your child was willfully and maliciously injured by another student, oftentimes your child would be limited to $1,000 in special damages for these types of lawsuits, which is why going after the school district, which is supposed to provide a safe environment for your child, is much more common.

Hopefully you never find yourself in a position where you’re considering filing a lawsuit against a school because your child was injured due to their negligence or inaction, but it happens more than many people realize. Let us be your resource during these emotional times so that you and your family can get the justice you deserve. For more information about injuries suffered at school, reach out to the team at Margolis Law Firm today at (952) 230-2700.