Bullying is an ongoing misuse of power in relationships through repeated verbal, physical and/or social behaviour that causes physical and/or psychological harm. It has lasting effects on all involved.
Our client was a teenager. He had good relationships with his family, did well socially and was performing well academically.
Unexpectedly, our client was physically attacked at school by a fellow student. Over the next couple of months this same student made further intimidating threats to our client. Our client became fearful of attending school and was constantly on the lookout for other attacks.
Then one day our client was attacked by the same student with a sharp implement. Following the attack, the school formally suspended the attacker. These seemed to be the only steps taken by the school to deal with the attacker over the course of these incidents.
As a result of these traumatic incidents our client developed a Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and remained hypervigilant, suffering from flashbacks and nightmares. He became more and more reclusive and depressed and was not able to return to school for fear of further attack.
Our client’s mother contacted our expert personal injury lawyers to discuss the possibility of a public liability claim. Public liability claims are fault-based, which means that for a claim to be successful, fault on the part of some other party, in this case the school, needs to be proven.
We reviewed the information provided to us and determined a claim for compensation against the school was possible. The facts were reviewed and some of the reasons we believed a public liability claim against the school was reasonable include:
- failure to properly supervise our client and other students,
- failure to take reasonable measures to protect our client from risk of injury,
- failure to observe our client was in a position of peril as regards to the other student’s behaviour,
- failure to have in place a proper system of supervision which would have prevented our client from assault,
- exposed our client to a risk of injury which could have been avoided by the exercise of reasonable care,
- failure to prevent the other student from assaulting our client,
- failure to act to protect our client from the behaviour of the other student in the circumstances where the school was aware of that student’s history.
Expert opinion reports on liability, investigator’s statements and medical evidence were obtained on our client’s behalf.
Calculations for general damages, care and wage loss, past treatment expenses and future treatment expenses were considered in the claim and our assessment of damages was calculated and presented to the school.
Negotiations were entered into with the school’s solicitors and our opening offer was put forward. Multiple counteroffers with the school’s solicitors were required before the matter eventually resolved for a sum in the several hundreds of thousands of dollars. Although this will not restore our client’s health, it will go a long way to the cost of treatment and rehabilitation. Further, it will hopefully act as a lesson to the school regarding their future conduct in similar situations.