Who is Responsible if My Child is Injured at School?

Almost every single person can point to at least one scar on their body which is accompanied by a story about how they got that scar during their childhood. Most children spend their days playing, running, jumping, racing, and crawling. While it’s no secret that children can get hurt, one of the most difficult situations to navigate is when children are hurt at their school.

My Child’s Injuries Were Caused by Another Child

When your child is injured by another child at school, the most important thing to establish is whether your child is in actual danger, and they are being bullied by another child. If your child is being bullied, the injuries could be the result of an assault or battery.

An assault is the intentional causing of an apprehension of an imminent harmful or offensive contact. By contrast, a battery is the intentional infliction of harmful or offensive bodily contact. This means that with assault the victim is in the belief that they are going to be hurt, and with a battery, the victim is actually hurt.

While you may be familiar with assault and battery in the criminal world, these two offenses are what is known as intentional torts meaning that the person who perpetrated these actions had to have the specific intent needed to satisfy the requirements of these torts.

If the injuries caused by the other child were accidental, there are different actions that you can take as a parent. Sometimes, parents are tempted to talk to each other and see if they can come to an agreement as to how to split or pay for any medical expenses associated with the injuries. For example, if your child suffers a broken bone as a result of the rough house play with another child, you and the other parent could agree that the other child’s parents pay for all of your child’s medical expenses.

However, these attempts to settle these issues with the other child’s parents can be very difficult. Where the other parents could be willing and ready to pay for medical expenses they can quickly stop responding to any attempts to contact them once they learn of the amount that the expenses are piling up to be.

While settlements with the other child’s parents can definitely be reached, the help of an attorney can ensure that they continue contact with you and remain involved in your child’s recovery process, especially if your child’s injuries are caused by the actions of their child.

My Child’s Injuries Were Caused by Something at School

While children roughhousing can be a very big area where children get hurt, sometimes, children get hurt at school because of their surroundings. In instances where your child is attending a school, your child is owed a duty of care by the school in which they are attending.

One of the most familiar things in a school is a playground, filled with monkey bars, slides, and all sorts of opportunities for your child to become hurt. If your child suffers from an injury because of a playground accident due to the playground equipment not being properly maintained, then you could have a claim against the school under the theory of premises liability.

Premises liability allows you to recover for damages that your child suffers on their school campus if their accident was caused by negligence or a failure to maintain reasonably safe conditions throughout their property. As mentioned above, this could be from improper care of playground equipment or other areas like stairwells.

In addition, you would be able to recover from your child’s injuries on the theory of negligence. The school can be liable for your child’s injuries under the theory of negligence if the school failed to meet a certain standard of care and failed to take measures to protect people from foreseeable harm.

Some examples of negligence at your child’s school could be:

• The school failing to make repairs on a water fountain which breaks and injures your child
• The school forgets to put a “wet floor” sign after they are done mopping the hallways and your child slips and falls, injuring themselves
• The school fails to make repairs to a fence that surrounds the playground and your child cuts themselves on an exposed portion of the fence

While both negligence and premises liability could prove to be successful in your recovery against the school, an experienced personal injury attorney is able to review the case to make an appropriate determination as to which theory of liability would be appropriate to pursue in your case.

Regardless of whether the injuries to your child were caused by another child or by the actions of the school, you may have more avenues of compensation available to you than you may think.

Hiring the Best Personal Injury Attorney

Any occasion where your child is injured can be scary and difficult to navigate as a parent. While children are naturally curious and like to play in ways that can deem rough or dangerous, more often than not, children exercise care and caution in their day-to-day activities. No parent wants to get the phone call from the school nurse asking them to come and pick up their child because they were hurt, but it’s always important to speak to people at the school, retain the appropriate documentation, and most imperative at all, hire an experienced personal injury attorney who will be able to help you navigate different options you may have to recover for your child’s injuries.

If your child has been injured while they were in school whether it was due to another child or the school, The Heidari Law Group can help you recover damages as a result of your child’s injuries. With offices in Fresno, California, Sacramento, California, Los Angeles, California, Irvine, California, San Jose, California, and Las Vegas, Nevada, the Heidari Law Group has qualified personal injury attorneys who are able to explore all of the appropriate avenues that you have at compensation against the school or the parents of the child which harmed your child.

Sometimes, children’s injuries may not seem serious at first but then manifest into more serious issues the older they get. While it may seem like a good idea to try and talk to the school or the other child’s parents to settle the issue amongst yourselves, only an experienced attorney will make sure that you are represented appropriately to get maximum compensation.

Regardless of whether you are in California or Nevada, the Heidari Law Group is able to assist you at every step of your child’s recovery process and ensure that you are equipped with all the tools that you need in order to receive fair compensation. Reach out to our offices and call for a free consultation today!

***Disclaimer: This blog is created by Heidari Law Group for educational purposes. This article provides a general understanding of the law. It does not provide specific advice. By using this site and reading through this blog, there is no attorney-client relationship created between you and any member of Heidari Law. Further, due to the constant change of the law, some parts of the information above may no longer be good law.