Bullying results in $4M settlement

Hmm. I'd have to think about that.

 

Here's what gnaws at me:

Let's say instead of what happened, the kid and the bully run into each other at the baseball fields in the county park in July.

Bully punches the kid, and the same injury happens.

Same kids, same injury, but the school is in no way culpable.

Seems a little odd that you can be culpable based pretty much on the bullying happening at the wrong place/wrong time.

 

But the school can't control what happens at the baseball fields, and the bullied kid can avoid that place too. But he has to go to school. And the school can certainly create enough deterrents to make the bully think twice. Had the school fulfilled that responsibility, there's a pretty good chance the kid is still walking.

 

Based on the story given, there is no way to determine if the school did or did not 'create enough deterrents' (whatever that means). They wrote a check to go away, while accepting no culpability.

Yesterday, we read that schools need to have, on site, someone capable of handling an out-of-control maniac, without touching them, or there'd be lawsuits.

Today, schools need to have all encompassing monitoring of every action of every student, lest you find yourself writing a check for $4.2 mill.

And, as with every message board, we have a bunch of armchair quarterbacks who have all the answers (or at least are sure the schools are in the wrong).

 

Who cares if they have a legal denial of culpability? The award itself speaks to their exposure here. There is documentation that they knew this kid (and another) were being abused by one of their students. They didn't do anything about it. That's beyond dispute.

 

No we didn't.

 

Anyone get fired over this?

 

They should have called the police and put the kid in handcuffs.

 

A school district not protecting a student from bullying? Shocking.

 

Again -- it really doesn't matter what the school district thinks of itself. (Given your other commentary here, I am surprised you wouldn't see this as UNION!!!!!!!! protectionism.) They paid $4.2 million. If it was the insurance company that decided this, it is because the insurance company's lawyers concluded they were going to lose a hell of a lot more than that in court.

 

For what he was doing and the fact that he was 12 at the time? That might not have been a bad idea. I know you are trying to equate this to the case of the 6-year-old, but that's doing nothing but highlighting your own ignorance.

 

Why should the bullied students be the ones to bear this cost instead of the institutions that foster it?