Connecticut Bullying Victim Representation
Your Connecticut elementary or secondary student should not have to face school bullying. Your student has the right to attend school without the interference, disruption, and harm that bullying causes. The Lento Law Firm's premier Education Law Team is available in Bridgeport, New Haven, Stamford, Hartford, Waterbury, Norwalk, Danbury, New Britain, and across Connecticut to help your student end bullying while making a monetary recovery for bullying harm. We can provide the skilled and experienced representation your student needs. Call 888.535.3686 now or use our contact form to tell us about your student's case involving Connecticut school bullying.
Seeking Connecticut Bullying Victim Representation
You have every good reason to seek qualified legal representation for your Connecticut grade school student to make a money recovery for bullying harm. You know how important grade school years are to your student's academic, social, emotional, and physical development. Don't lose one or more years to bullying incidents. Bullying can cost your student that much and more. Lost grade school years are very hard for a student to make up. Our representation seeking a swift end to bullying while making a monetary recovery could be the difference in keeping your student on track in your student's full development.
Bullying Is More than a Connecticut Problem
Bullying is more than a Connecticut issue. The National Association of School Nurses is among the many professional organizations, and school policy advocates labeling bullying as a national problem. According to one research site, Connecticut ranks only 35th among the fifty states on the incidence of bullying in its public schools. But that ranking still means hundreds of bullying incidents in the state's schools every year.
Serious Bullying Harms and Impacts
The problem isn't just that bullying is widespread. The problem is also that bullying can cause serious harm. Lawmakers, policymakers, and education advocates know how serious bullying harms are. Adults unfamiliar with school environments these days may think of bullying as a minor annoyance with which students should put up to toughen up. However, the bullying cases, reported instances and data analysis show much more serious bullying harms. Bullying can involve serious physical injuries like shootings, stabbings, beatings, and sexual assaults. Bullying can also cause severe mental and emotional distress, stunting academic engagement, producing low and failing grades, and leading to isolation, depression, and school dismissal or dropout, as the Centers for Disease Control confirms. Higher student suicide rates even correlate with school bullying. Don't take bullying lightly. Protect your student. Get our help.
Making a Money Recovery in a Bullying Case
Courts nationwide have provided monetary recoveries for student victims suffering severe bullying harm. Cases in Connecticut brought both under Connecticut state tort law and under federal civil rights laws have also provided for monetary recoveries. Connecticut cases, like cases elsewhere, have involved alleged sexual slurs, daily taunting and teasing, rape, sexual harassment, voyeurism, invasion of privacy, and other serious harms, leading to school withdrawal, suicidal ideation, and other losses and injuries. Recoveries have been in the five to six figures, topping $100,000.
But prevailing in civil litigation on behalf of bullying victims isn't easy. The federal and state laws, rules, and regulations under which students make money recoveries are complex. So are the academic, administrative, and court procedures. Your student may have to complete school and regulatory filings before making a court filing in the right court under the right theories. Schools tend to fight these cases to preserve their reputations, sometimes even accusing the victim of causing or consenting to the harm. You need skilled and experienced counsel, not unqualified local counsel. Retain our premier Education Law Team.
Bullying in Connecticut Grade Schools
Connecticut reports a rising trend of bullying incidents in the state's schools, up to over one thousand such incidents in recent years. The state's statistics may underreport bullying. A national bullying research center draws on federal statistics to indicate that over half of Connecticut students report having been bullied in the past thirty days, with nearly three-quarters of Connecticut students reporting at least one bullying instance over the course of their schooling. More than a third of Connecticut students admit to bullying others. Cyberbullying and sexting also show high Connecticut state rates. Don't be surprised at your student's report of bullying incidents. Bullying happens in Connecticut schools, just as it happens elsewhere. Get our help for your student to stop the bullying and make a money recovery.
Connecticut Anti-Bullying Laws
The Connecticut legislature, like other state legislatures, prohibits bullying in the state's schools. Connecticut Statutes Section 10-222d(b) requires schools to adopt and enforce policies prohibiting bullying. Connecticut's grade schools must also train teachers and other school personnel to recognize and prevent bullying. Schools must provide a complaint process for students suffering bullying and must act promptly to notify parents, investigate bullying reports, and protect student victims against retaliation for reporting bullying. Schools must also report bullying data to the state for analysis. The state legislature authorizes the state's Department of Education to implement the legislature's anti-bullying measures. Your student has plenty of state laws on which to rely to show that the school has an obligation to discourage, prevent, punish, and redress bullying.
Connecticut's Bullying Definition
Connecticut Statutes Section 10-222d(a)(1) defines bullying as “an act that is direct or indirect and severe, persistent or pervasive,” and that “(A) causes physical or emotional harm to an individual, (B) places an individual in reasonable fear of physical or emotional harm, or (C) infringes on the rights or opportunities of an individual at school.” The statute also prohibits students or others from creating a hostile environment at school through electronic communications or other actions taken outside of school hours and off school grounds. A hostile environment, under the statute's definition, is “a situation in which bullying among students is sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of the school climate.” Connecticut has broad and inclusive definitions for bullying.
Forms of Bullying Within Connecticut's Definition
Bullying can take many forms. Each case is different. But some general examples of misconduct that should clearly fall within Connecticut's broad definitions for bullying would include:
- threats that the bully makes of physical harm, privacy invasion, public embarrassment, or property damage against a student victim;
- other mental distress from the bully taunting, ridiculing, teasing, mocking, intimidating, or embarrassing a student victim more;
- physical injury the bully commits such as by kicking, slapping, pulling hair, striking with a fist, tripping, or other physical assault against a student victim;
- property theft, damage, or destruction of electronic devices like laptop computers, tablets, and cell phones, notes, outlines, assignments, course texts, backpacks, bags, clothing, jewelry, or other personal property of a student victim;
- disrupting school participation through hostile, intimidating, or abusive acts, causing a student victim to withdraw from school activities or isolate from school peers or staff.
Connecticut's Bullying Definition Expressly Includes Discrimination
Bullying often focuses on the student victim's personal characteristics such as height, weight, or other physical features, dress or demeanor, or habits, attitudes, and practices. Some of those characteristics fall within state and federal anti-discrimination laws protecting a student's race, color, national origin, sex, religion, or disability. Connecticut Statutes Section 10-222d(a)(1) expressly defines bullying to include actions “based on any actual or perceived differentiating characteristic,” including as non-exhaustive examples the student victim's “race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, socioeconomic status, academic status, physical appearance, or mental, physical, developmental or sensory disability….” The definition also protects the student victim's “association with an individual or group who has or is perceived to have one or more of such characteristics.” Discriminatory bullying can make the bullying worse, having a more harmful impact and warranting greater monetary damages.
Connecticut's Bullying Definition Includes Cyberbullying
Connecticut Statutes Section 10-222d(a)(1) further expressly defines bullying to prohibit cyberbullying. The statute defines cyberbullying as “any act of bullying through the use of the Internet, interactive and digital technologies, cellular mobile telephone or other mobile electronic devices or any electronic communications.” It then defines broadly both the electronic devices and communications on which cyberbullying may rely. Don't minimize the impact of electronic communications. They can contribute substantially to bullying harm.
Connecticut Civil Liability Compensating Bullying Victims
Connecticut's anti-bullying laws grant limited immunity to school boards, districts, and officials who act in good faith in implementing the required anti-bullying measures. Immunity means that you cannot sue for monetary damages. Connecticut Statutes Section 10-222l provides that the immunity extends only to actions in good faith, not to “acts or omissions constituting gross, reckless, wilful or wanton misconduct.” The statute thus raises the bar for civil liability under Connecticut state law, from simple or ordinary negligence, to the statutory gross, reckless, wilful, or wanton misconduct. We can help you and your student determine whether your student's bullying claim against the school or its officials meets this higher standard for civil liability.
Connecticut Governmental Liability Law and Bullying Claimants
Connecticut also has complex governmental immunity laws. Those governmental immunity laws limit the government actors and agencies a person can sue and for what actions they can sue. For example, Connecticut state laws permit civil lawsuits against certain state agencies for the negligent operation of motor vehicles or maintenance of a defective roadway but not for discretionary functions and decisions within the scope of government authority. These laws are complex enough, and each bullying case may be different enough not to allow for general statements of whether schools and their officials may be liable for bullying. Suffice it to say that state law cases for money recovery may well be possible, depending on the circumstance, although one must account for these general governmental immunity laws.
Other Connecticut Tort Law Compensating Bullying Victims
You can see from the above discussion that you and your student may have a Connecticut state law claim for monetary damages if you have evidence of gross, reckless, wilful, or wanton misconduct outside of the good faith of school officials. Ordinary negligence won't generally do. But Connecticut state law may authorize other tort claims against the school or its officials, depending on your student's experience of bullying and the school's response. Those claims may include defamation, invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and even assault and battery if school officials engaged in the bullying or authorized and ratified it.
Connecticut State Law Claims Against the Bully
Suing the bully may be another option, especially if the bully was an adult with income or assets out of which to pay a money judgment. If, instead, the bully was only a minor student, your student might still receive a judgment, but the judgment would likely not be something on which your student could collect. Minor students do not generally have income or assets to pay a judgment. Liability insurance also does not generally cover intentional wrongs like bullying. Your student's practical option is generally only to pursue monetary damages from the school and its officials rather than from the student bully.
Federal Laws Compensating for Bullying Harm
While Connecticut state law may grant your student a right of recovery, state immunity laws and elevated liability standards may make a federal law recovery your student's preferred option. Federal law actions for bullying harm typically end up in federal court rather than state court. Federal court has different customs, conventions, and procedures than state court. Local lawyers may not necessarily practice in federal court, and if they do, they may not have the knowledge, skill, and experience necessary to achieve your best outcome in a complex bullying case against the public school. Let our premier Education Law Team help rather than risk retaining unqualified counsel.
Section 1983 Substantive Due Process Claims
Section 1983 is the first federal law under which you and your student may be able to obtain a money damages recovery for Connecticut grade school bullying injuries. Section 1983 is a complex statute addressing deprivations of constitutional rights under color of state law. Basically, Congress enacted Section 1983 to hold state and local officials liable for refusing to recognize and respect constitutional due process rights in the South and other regions of the country after the Civil War. But Section 1983 can equally apply to hold Connecticut schools and their officials civilly liable for bullying under certain circumstances.
Federal courts in Connecticut and other states have upheld jury verdicts and monetary settlements in certain bullying cases, where the school officials were aware but deliberately indifferent that the bullying violated your student's constitutional or federal statutory rights. Theories of recovery have included a special duty and relationship, Soper v. Hoben, 195 F.3d 845, 852 (6th Cir. 1999), a state-created danger, Jones v. Reynolds, 438 F.3d 685, 690 (6th Cir. 2006), and a shocks the conscience test, Range v. Douglas, 763 F.3d 573, 588 (6th Cir. 2014). Our premier Education Law Team can help you and your student evaluate, pursue, and prove any Section 1983 claims for Connecticut public school bullying harm.
Federal Anti-Discrimination Laws for Bullying Compensation
In certain cases, civil litigants have also made recoveries for bullying harm under federal anti-discrimination laws. As the discussion above shows, bullying can often involve targeting the student victim's protected characteristics like the victim's race, color, national origin, sex, religion, or disability. The bullying may, in other words, constitute unlawful discrimination, particularly if school officials are aware of but deliberately indifferent to the bullying and its discriminatory impact. Our attorneys can help you and your student evaluate whether one or more of the following federal anti-discrimination laws support a federal cause of action for money damages:
- Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (the ADA);
- Title IV or Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964;
- Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (Title IX);
- Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Section 504);
- the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (the IDEA law).
Damages Categories for Connecticut Bullying Victims
Connecticut state law, more so than any of the above federal laws, will likely define the damages that your student may recover for bullying harm under any of the above state or federal causes of action. Federal courts will often look to state damages law to fill in the gaps in federal laws, like Section 1983 and federal anti-discrimination laws, that do not clearly define recoverable damages. The Connecticut state law of damages is similar to the damages laws in other states. If your student has a provable liability theory, those damages laws provide for your student's recovery of both economic and non-economic damages.
Economic Damages for Connecticut Public School Bullying Harm
Economic damages mean damages that you can clearly prove in measurable terms, particularly out-of-pocket losses like medical expenses you and your student incur for treating bullying injuries. Medical expenses could include both treatment for physical injuries and treatment for mental and emotional distress. Medical expenses could also include past, present, and future treatment, as long as treatment may be necessary. Economic damages could also include work loss if your student missed work because of the bullying injuries. Economic damages could also include other incidental out-of-pocket losses like medical mileage back and forth from treating care providers and replacement of clothing, glasses, jewelry, computers, handbags, and other personal property the bully stole, damaged, or destroyed.
Non-Economic Damages for Connecticut Public School Bullying Harm
If your student suffered any bullying harm at all, that harm most likely included what state damages law defines as non-economic loss. Recoverable non-economic loss in a bullying case may include pain and suffering from physical assaults and injuries, mental and emotional distress over ridicule and taunting, fear, fright, and shock over threats, and loss of enjoyment of life due to the general oppression. Economic damages do not limit non-economic damages. Your student's non-economic damages may be large, running into the tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, even if your student's economic damages are small.
Punitive Damages for Connecticut Public School Bullying Harm
Some states permit punitive damages to punish the defendant, in addition to the above compensatory damages to make the plaintiff whole. Connecticut is among the states that provide for punitive damages under common law. Punitive damages awards, though, generally require proof of more reprehensible misconduct. Case law supports punitive damages awards in the state when the defendant exhibits a reckless indifference to the rights of others or an intentional or wanton violation of those rights. Depending on the facts of your student's case, our attorneys may be able to make a case for a punitive damages award.
Defending Disciplinary Charges Against Bullying Victims
Schools and their officials may vigorously contest a bullying case for monetary damages. Few public officials would willingly admit to engaging in such serious wrongs. One of the ways school officials may defend a bullying case is to allege that the student victim participated in the bullying. Your student's school may even bring bullying charges against your student, even though your student was only a victim, not a perpetrator, of bullying. A victim's self-defense and acting out may look like misconduct. Our attorneys are equipped to defend your student against bullying or other disciplinary charges in the course of pursuing your student's money damages claim.
Representation for Connecticut Bullying Victims
The Lento Law Firm's premier Education Law Team is available to represent your student in Bridgeport, New Haven, Stamford, Hartford, Waterbury, Norwalk, Danbury, New Britain, or any other location across Connecticut. We have the skills and experience to help your student make a monetary recovery for bullying harm if one is available. Our attorneys have helped hundreds of students gain relief from bullying and other school conduct issues. Call 888.535.3686 now or use our contact form to tell us about your case. Let us help your Connecticut grade school student.
