Defective School Equipment Causing Child Injuries & Related Legal Claims
From the classroom and the laboratory to the cafeteria and the gym, children interact with many types of equipment throughout a day at school. When an item contains a defect, a child may suffer injuries such as burns, lacerations, broken bones, spinal cord injuries, and brain injuries. Sometimes a school bears some responsibility for these accidents, since it has an obligation to take reasonable steps to keep children safe. Often, though, a claim will result against the manufacturer of the faulty product.
Legal Claims Based on Defective School Equipment
Parents suing a manufacturer for injuries to their child would need to show that the product contained a defect that caused the child’s injuries. Defects generally take three forms: design, manufacturing, and marketing (or warning) defects. A design defect involves an inherent flaw in the intended form of the product. Thus, it affects all the items in the product line. A manufacturing defect involves a mistake in making a specific item or group of items. A marketing or warning defect, also known as a failure to warn, involves a lack of proper instructions or safety warnings regarding the use of the product.
Parents usually can hold a manufacturer strictly liable, regardless of how much care the manufacturer used in designing or making the product or providing warnings. This contrasts with most personal injury cases, which require showing that the defendant failed to use the degree of care that they should have used in a certain situation. Strict liability can make it easier for a victim to recover damages. These may include tangible items such as medical bills and the costs of future treatment, as well as intangible damages like pain and suffering.
In addition to suing the manufacturer, parents might sue the school if an investigation reveals that the school allowed children to continue using a product that the school knew to be defective or hazardous. This claim would proceed under a negligence theory rather than a strict liability theory. Parents would need to show that their child suffered harm because the school failed to meet the applicable standard of care under the circumstances.
Suing a school district for injuries to a child usually involves submitting a notice of claim to the school district or another appropriate government agency. The deadline for a notice of claim tends to expire sooner than the deadline for filing an ordinary lawsuit, so parents should act quickly if they think that they might have a claim against a school district. (They also might want to check with an attorney early in the process to make sure that their claim is worth pursuing.) A notice of claim will inform the school district about the events leading to the accident, the injuries that the child suffered, and the compensation that the parents are demanding for the injuries. State laws may impose further limitations on school district liability as well.
