LegalPenguin said:
There is general agreement that a parent can and should take such action.
There used to be general agreement that a teacher can and should take such action. I find myself longing for the good old days on this one.
However, none of this explains why, if a school decides to allow a teacher to grab a child, that the school should be able to dodge financial responsibility for an injury caused by a zealous teacher grabbing a kid with perhaps a physical condition.
There are a couple of possible explanations. First, if the teacher is acting outside the normal realms of behavior for a teacher, why does the school district bear any responsibility at all? Second, when "the school district" has to pay out, who suffers? The school administration? The teachers? No. The students. The school district still isn't bearing any responsibility, because no one except the students themselves lose anything. Third, if an injury happens, did someone necessarily "cause" it?
That is one of the biggest problems with the lawsuit culture in America. Any time something goes wrong, a cause and a responsible party must be found, it seems. When a student has to be restrained, in a very small number of cases, injury will result. I say that controlling the situation is very important, and must be done. The need to get that classroom back in working order should have outweighed the risk of injury to that girl. If an injury does, in fact, occur, then the teacher is not necessarily guilty of anything.
Our society is so out of whack that those words seem shocking, but I think they are true.
Then an injury is 10 times more likely to be the result of a hot-head teacher being too rough than chance.
All of these numbers are just made up, but the point is that yes, chance injuries may occur, but I'll bet that more occur because some teacher is a hot-head.
This is a legitimate point In my earlier statements I made it sound as if all injuries would be the result of pure chance, but I don't believe that. If all teachers were allowed to grab children when they are unruly, some teachers will be more likely to cause injury than others. A teacher with a nasty temper is more likely to be involved in an incident that results in an injury than one who is calm, cool, and collected.
Does it follow that the injury that occurred during the confrontation with the "hot head" is a result of "negligence or malice?"
"Hot heads" are one specific sort of human beings, which come in a wide variety of flavors, colors, and personalities. Teachers have responsibility to maintain order in the classroom. On those rare occaisions when they must use physical means to do so, shall we castigate the "hot heads" for normal human failings when they make a mistake that results in an injury?
It's a tough job, and not everyone can do it perfectly. Shall we punish those who make a slightly higher number of mistakes when doing something very difficult?
For some reason the school has chosen to err on the side on inaction. I'd speculate that this is because experience has shown that the policy in place carries the least risk of negligent injury once all the variables (including the chance that the teacher is a hot-head) are considered...
I think your speculation is correct. This is precisely what they fear. And, contrary to all conventional wisdom, I am saying that this policy is a mistake. It is the policy which our legal system either mandates, or makes logical through the threat of lawsuits, but, IMHO, it is bad for schools, bad for society, and bad for children.
When the child on the videotape began the tantrum in class, the way to minimize the risk of negligent injury, and thus the possibility of a lawsuit, was to empty the classroom. I will not fault the school faculty for doing what they did, because of the legal environment. However, in a better world, I think they should have taken the chance on the injury, removed the disturbance (i.e. the girl), and let the rest of the class continue.
If the chance of injury was high, I would probably feel differently, but it was low. However, in order to avoid the smallest chance of injury, the certainty of destroying the education of the rest of the class was allowed to occur.
What do you think was the effect that this incident had on the other members of that class?
For what it's worth, I think your arguments related to coverups and motivations for investigations are legitimate. I'm going to ignore them for the moment, just for reasons of length. Anyone who, like me, advocates tort reform ought to have an answer for them.
One thing to consider, though, is whether our tort system is the only possible way to address these problems, or the best. It is what we use today, but it has some severe problems, and if it were not available, there would be a motivation to create some system that could address the problem, without some of the problems caused by the tort system as practiced in America today.
However, as this thread reflects, the threat will hopefully cause a school to take measures to avoid the problem, like screening teachers and removing opportuinities for abuse.
Once upon a time, the school had the opportunity to remove students who created situations in which injuries might result.
The teachers I had had a intuitive grasp of how to cause pain to small children that irritated them on the pretext of discipline.
Clever bunch, weren't they?
So did mine. I once experienced some "grip pressure" from a teacher. It didn't do me any harm. And I dare say that I didn't actually deserve it, but perhaps I'll relate the story, and invite others to comment on whether the teacher's actions were appropriate. I seriously doubt he would dare do what he did today, but the story will have to wait for another day.
If I were there wouldn't be so many "Last edited by RandFan on..." notes on the bottom of my posts.
