School District Liability: Duty of Care Owed to Students, Visitors, Volunteers, Trespassers and Local Agencies

Whenever children are involved in events on school premises, there is always the possibility of school district liability for incidents that happen on school grounds or at school-sponsored events. This foreseeability gives rise to a duty to take reasonable steps to prevent a child from being harmed. Public school districts may find themselves liable for injury — not only for those suffered by their own students, but also for those incurred by children who are invited onto school grounds, who attend separate programs on school grounds, and even those who are considered trespassers.

School-sponsored events, such as an after-school club, a school dance, or a daycare program run by the school board, are clearly extensions of the school. With these types of programs, the school’s safety and supervisory policies apply. If a person is hurt or is sexually assaulted during a school-sponsored or operated event, it is generally clear that school district liability will attach if there is a finding of negligence.

A school district’s liability for injuries to children on its grounds is far less clear, however, when an outside organization is involved or when an injured party was not authorized to be on campus. Schools sometimes rent or give space to organizations like the Boy Scouts, a community basketball organization, or a private dance school to provide services to the general public, students at the school, or both. Very often, outside organizations cooperate with the school to provide before- and after-school services for the school’s own students, but these programs are not directly operated by the school. Typically, schools have policies that spell out an approval process for the use of their space. However, based on some of the cases for which we have been engaged, these policies do not always go far enough — thus leaving school districts open to liability if a child involved in an activity that is run by an outside organization is injured on school grounds.

School District Liability When an Outside Agency or Organization is Involved

For example, one of our cases involved a school that allowed a community athletic association to use its gym. The board of education approved the application and even noted that the organization had liability insurance. One of the volunteers with the athletic association led a participant, who was also a student at the school, to the restroom — where the volunteer sexually assaulted the student. When we reviewed the facts to render an opinion as to whether this school acted within the professional standard of care, it became evident that the athletic association never trained its volunteers in the prevention, detection, and reporting of suspected child abuse. It did not have a plan for supervising its volunteers, nor did it check their backgrounds before allowing them to have contact with the children in their program.

One of the questions that arose in this case was: Did the school have a responsibility to ensure that the other organization had policies in place to reasonably protect the school’s own students from harm?

School district liability and duty of the school to the plaintiff depends upon the relationship between the plaintiff and the school, the relationship between the plaintiff and the other organization, and the relationship between the school and the other organization. Often, these relationships are complicated, and it is necessary to determine which agency had responsibility for the plaintiff’s safety at the time of the incident.

Consider the following examples:

• A school allows one of its teachers to use the music room after school to provide private lessons. The teacher systematically lures a student into an inappropriate relationship and is accused of sexually abusing him in the school.
• A person on the school’s grounds when not authorized suffers an injury. Even though this person would be considered a trespasser, the school may be liable under certain circumstances.
• The parent of an athlete from an opposing wrestling team falls from the bleachers in the high school gym. Which school — if either — had responsibility for his safety?

In any of these scenarios, the school may become a defendant in a lawsuit and argue that it had no responsibility for the safety of the plaintiff.

One of our cases involved an allegation that two students sexually abused a high school girl under the bleachers during a football game. All three students were at the football field to watch the game and were allowed to be there. The plaintiff student had an implied invitation to enter the premises (the football field), and she entered for the purpose of which the invitation was extended (to watch the game). In a situation like this — all parties at a school-sponsored event were authorized to be there — the plaintiff’s attorney would need to show that the school had a duty to the student to take affirmative action to protect her from an unreasonable risk of harm.

While the school is not a guarantor of the student’s safety, it must take an affirmative action in anticipation of foreseeable injury in order to minimize school district liability. The plaintiff must show that the school knew, or should have known, that the dark area under the bleachers amounted to a defective condition, that the risk to the student could be foreseen, and that because of the school’s negligence in not correcting this condition (not illuminating the area), a student could be assaulted in that location. The defendant’s attorney, on the other hand, must show that this area of the bleachers did not constitute a defective condition, that the information known by the school would not give rise to the foreseeability of the plaintiff being sexually assaulted in that location, and that intervening variables served as proximate cause of her injury. An education administration and supervision expert witness would determine whether the school maintained its property in a reasonably safe condition and whether it reasonably supervised its property during the game.

Questions That Help to Determine School District Liability and Duty

When attorneys engage our firm’s services to render an opinion as to whether the school bore responsibility in specific circumstances, we review the duty owed to the plaintiff and whether the school acted reasonably, appropriately, and within the professional standard of care. Often, this analysis begins with a determination of whether the plaintiff was authorized to be on the premises (for instance, a student attending class); was invited to be on the premises (for instance, a member of a visiting football team playing a game against the home team); was a licensee by virtue of an agreement with another entity (for instance, an enrollee in a dance school); or whether the person was trespassing. With each of these classifications, a different approach is applied to the analysis of which entity was responsible for protecting the plaintiff from harm and what that responsibility involved.

When developing an opinion in such cases, our expert witness will apply his education, training, and professional experience to answer several questions: Who was the responsible agency? What policies did the agency have in place to protect individuals from harm? Did the agency apply its policies? What training was provided to the staff that was responsible for supervising children, and was the training reasonable? Did the agency meet other required standards, such as those required by licensing agencies? Did the agency vet and supervise individuals who were responsible for the safety of children?
In examining these questions, it can be determined whether the school had a duty to the plaintiff and whether that duty was breached resulting in school district liability.