Civil Money Damages for New York Bullying Victims
Your New York grade school student shouldn't have to face bullying. Bullying can bring a host of harm, and school officials know it or should know it. New York has ensured that school officials owe students the duty to stop, prevent, and redress bullying because of its significant harm. One of your student's rights may include a monetary damages recovery for bullying harm that the school should have stopped and addressed but failed to do so.
Our Education Law Team has the skills and experience your student needs to pursue a money damages recovery in civil litigation over your student's New York grade school bullying harm. Let us help you evaluate, prepare, and pursue your student's monetary recovery against the school, school district, and responsible officials. We are committed to helping New York grade school students stop bullying harm. Call 888.535.3686 now for help, or tell us about your case here.
Bullying Is a Persistent and Serious National Problem
Anti-bullying legislation enacted across the country shows that legislators and policymakers know the prevalence and harmful impact of bullying in elementary and secondary schools. The experts have weighed in, and the verdict is unanimous: bullying is a persistent and serious problem in the nation's grade schools. School nurses, more than anyone else, see bullying's impact, and the National Association of School Nurses calls bullying exactly that: a persistent national problem. Studies of bullying consistently show that bullied students withdraw from school to avoid the attention of their attackers. As a consequence, they suffer high school dismissal and dropout rates, as the Centers for Disease Control report. Student distress from bullying can cause severe mental health issues, including acute and chronic depression leading to student suicide, as a National Library of Medicine report and many liability cases show. Fight bullying's effect on your student's academic improvement, mental health, and social development. Retain us to help your New York grade school student recover from bullying harm.
Money Damages Nationally in Bullying Cases
Students suffering bullying harm have made monetary recoveries in the thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, and millions of dollars in cases across the nation, including in New York. Parents have also made recoveries against public schools and private schools for student suicide deaths caused by severe school bullying. The laws allowing recovery vary from state to state. But the verdicts, judgments, and settlements show that many states authorize such recoveries, as difficult and challenging as proving them may be. Our Education Law Team has the skills and experience your student needs to join the hundreds of others who have made full and fair recoveries for their bullying harm where the school should have prevented it but failed to do so.
Bullying in New York Grade Schools
Bullying is as much or more of a problem in New York as it is in other states. One advocate reviewing all fifty states' bullying statistics and anti-bullying laws finds that New York ranks fifth among the states in the prevalence of bullying in its grade schools but ranks only forty-sixth in laws prohibiting and addressing bullying. Media reports a sharp rise in bullying incidents in New York City schools, in particular, to unprecedented levels. The individual stories of bullying in New York schools, in media reports, and elsewhere are horrifying. The New York City Department of Health summarizes both the high rates of bullying, especially in middle schools and high schools and bullying's harmful impact on New York City grade school students. Bullying correlates with increased victim alcohol, tobacco, and drug use, weapons possession in self-defense, mental health issues, and truancy issues. Don't ignore the potential impact on your students. Let us help evaluate and pursue a money damages recovery for your student's bullying harm.
New York's Anti-Bullying Laws
Many states have extensive anti-bullying laws set out in a separate act. By contrast, New York embeds its anti-bullying provisions in other, more general laws regulating public education in the state. New York requires that its public schools create and maintain a learning environment free from bullying and harassment. A separate provision extends that obligation to prevent bullying to New York's public charter schools. New York's anti-bullying laws also mandate teacher training to recognize and prevent bullying. New York law also mentions the threat of bullying in its requirement that schools create and implement school safety plans. New York's anti-bullying laws are not as clear and comprehensive as in many other states, explaining the state's low ranking on anti-bullying legislation. But New York laws can nonetheless provide your student with meaningful relief and remedies, especially with the help of our premier Education Law Team.
New York's Bullying Definition
New York education law defines bullying as the “creation of a hostile environment by conduct or by threats, intimidation or abuse, including cyberbullying,” that has at least one of the following effects:
- unreasonably and substantially interfering with a student's educational performance, opportunities or benefits, or mental, emotional, or physical well-being;
- reasonably causes or would reasonably be expected to cause a student to fear for his or her physical safety;
- reasonably causes or would reasonably be expected to cause physical injury or emotional harm to a student or
- occurs off school property and creates or would foreseeably create a risk of substantial disruption within the school environment, where it is foreseeable that the conduct, threats, intimidation, or abuse might reach school property.
Common examples of bullying within New York's definition would include teasing, taunting, threats, intimidation, demeaning, humiliation, social exclusion, physical violence like hitting, tripping, shoving, spitting, and pulling hair, and damage, destruction, or theft of personal property including by extortion or coercion.
New York's Bullying Definition Includes Discrimination Prohibitions
New York's anti-bullying laws, like the laws of most other states, include anti-discrimination provisions. Bullies pick on victim characteristics in patterns that fit state and federal anti-discrimination laws. New York's Dignity for All Students Act thus extended the above bullying protections to prohibit student or staff harassment or discrimination based on “actual or perceived race, color, weight, national origin, ethnic group, religion, religious practice, disability, sexual orientation, gender, or sex.” The New York State Human Rights Law offers similar anti-discrimination bullying protections. New York City public school students would also find anti-discrimination bullying protections in the New York City Human Rights Law.
New York Civil Liability Compensating Bullying Victims
New York's anti-bullying laws, on their own terms, do not promise monetary damages to a student whose school fails to fulfill the statutory obligations. You and your student must look elsewhere for that authority to sue the school for monetary damages for bullying harm. But New York's anti-bullying laws help establish the duties that schools owe, the breach of which may give rise to a damages action under other New York law. The New York money damages bullying cases reflected in a national summary relied on both New York tort law and federal anti-discrimination law for their recoveries. We can evaluate your student's rights to recover under New York law and federal law for monetary damages for bullying harm.
New York Law Waiving Sovereign Immunity
Many states claim significant degrees of sovereign immunity against liability lawsuits for state and local government wrongs. Many states, though, waive that immunity in whole or in part. New York is among the small handful of states that issue a broad waiver of governmental immunity. Your student's money damages claim against the school, and its officials for failing to protect your student against bullying should not face significant immunity obstacles. Depending on the claims your student asserts and the defendants your student sues, your student may have to maintain the action in the New York Court of Claims or another special court after satisfying special notice provisions. Our attorneys can help you and your student navigate special immunity, notice, procedure, and liability issues involved in suing a public school and public officials.
New York Immunity for Individual School Employees
Suing a local government agency like your student's school may be significantly easier than holding the individual school employee accountable for bullying harm. In New York and other states, public officials, including school employees, may have qualified immunity from civil liability, especially if their actions involved discretion or choice. Ordinarily, you would prefer to sue the school over suing the individual school employee on a negligence claim because of the school's financial resources and ultimate responsibility. Your student may find it more difficult to sue the responsible teacher or school staff member because of immunity and duty issues unless the individual employee participated in the bullying. Let us help evaluate.
New York Negligence Law and Bullying Victims
Just because New York waives sovereign immunity does not mean that your student has a claim for recovery. Your student must still identify another New York law providing for the recovery. New York tort law includes your student's right to maintain a negligence claim. To support a negligence claim, your student must prove that the school owed a duty, breached that duty, and that the breach caused your student's bullying harm. New York's anti-bullying laws may establish the duty. The breach element, though, can be harder to prove unless your student can show that the school knew or should have known of the bullying and unreasonably failed to prevent it. Notice to teachers or other school officials the fact that bullying can be critical to a recovery. A school would ordinarily not have vicarious liability for the bullying misconduct of a student unless the school authorized or ratified the act. We can help your student evaluate and pursue a negligence claim.
Other New York Tort Law and Bullying Victims
New York law recognizes other tort theories of recovery beyond the ordinary negligence claim. Those other tort theories may include assault, battery, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Those theories require proof of intent. Teachers and other school staff are not likely to have intended your student's harm. Intentional tort theories would instead ordinarily apply only to the student who commits the bullying. If a teacher or other school employee committed the bullying, your student could have an intentional tort claim, although the school might not insure or indemnify (pay for) the employee's wrongdoing, which would have been outside the course of employment. Collectibility could be an issue. Your student's better course is ordinarily to pursue the school under a negligence claim rather than a teacher or other school official under an intentional tort claim.
New York Student and Parent Liability to Bullying Victims
Your student may be able to hold the individual student who bullies liable for your student's bullying harm. But students are ordinarily not collectible, having little or no income or assets. In New York, parents are not generally liable for their child's personal injury torts despite a limited New York parental liability law as to property damage. Your student's recourse is likely to be against the school, not the bullying student or the student's parents.
New York Compensation Laws for Private School Bullying
All of the above theories would also apply to a New York private school, meaning that if your student attends a private school, your student may be able to hold that school liable in a negligence action for unreasonably failing to prevent and protect against bullying harm. Your student may also be able to reach the individual teacher or school official whose negligence caused the harm because private school employees would not have governmental immunity.
Federal Laws Compensating for New York Bullying Harm
New York state laws provide your student with substantial rights and legal theories for recovery of money damages from bullying harm. But your student may also have such theories under federal law. Your student may generally plead all available theories in a single action. We can help your student evaluate your student's federal rights along with New York state law rights to a monetary recovery.
Section 1983 Claims for New York Bullying Harm
The federal damages statute 42 USC Section 1983 allows money damages suits against state and local officials who violate constitutional rights. Your student may have a claim that the school's deliberate indifference to known bullying violated your student's substantive due process and equal protection rights, warranting a substantial monetary recovery. Proving a state-created danger, Jones v. Reynolds, 438 F.3d 685, 690 (6th Cir. 2006), special duty and relationship, Soper v. Hoben, 195 F.3d 845, 852 (6th Cir. 1999), or act shocking the conscience, Range v. Douglas, 763 F.3d 573, 588 (6th Cir. 2014), increases your student's likelihood of a federal law recovery. Let us help you evaluate your student's Section 1983 claim.
Federal Anti-Discrimination Laws and New York Bullying Compensation
Your student may also have a federal law claim for monetary damages for bullying harm based on the school's violation of federal anti-discrimination laws. Bullies often target a student's protected characteristics like race, color, national origin, sex, religion, or disability. Congress enacted federal anti-discrimination laws protecting those characteristics because those characteristics are the ones that wrongdoers target. Your student's school wouldn't be directly liable for a bully's discriminatory harassment but could be liable if the school fails to promptly prevent and address that discriminatory harassment. New York bullying civil liability cases have recovered money damages under such federal laws as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, Titles IV and VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, or Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. Let us evaluate whether your student has a federal anti-discrimination law claim.
Recoverable Damages for New York Bullying Victims
New York law provides for compensatory damages when a party proves a legal theory for recovery. Compensatory damages are both economic and non-economic in nature. Your student may receive monetary damages for out-of-pocket losses like lost wages if your student was working or would have worked, medical expenses if your student received treatment for bullying injuries, counseling expenses if your student saw a counselor for bullying distress, and stolen, damaged, or destroyed personal items. But your student may recover a larger award for the non-economic consequences of the bullying harm, like embarrassment, humiliation, and mental and emotional distress. Juries and judges sometimes award non-economic damages many times greater than the economic loss.
New York law may also permit your student to recover a punitive damages award to punish the school. Punitive damages awards can be substantial, sometimes far greater than the compensatory award. But in New York, as in other states allowing punitive damages, case law like Ross vs. Louise Wise Services, Inc., 28 A.D.3d 272, 812 N.Y.S.2d 325 (N.Y. App. Div. 2006), allows punitive damages only on a showing of a high degree of moral turpitude in the commission of the recoverable wrong. School officials would have had to have done more than commit ordinary negligence. We can help your student evaluate the available damages.
Pursuing a New York Civil Action for Bullying
Our Education Law Team is ready to help you and your student evaluate and pursue a money damages recovery for bullying harm. These cases are not easy. They typically require substantially more investigation and substantially greater law knowledge and procedural skills than ordinary personal injury litigation. Do not retain unqualified local criminal defense or trial attorney representation. Our attorneys have the skills and experience your student needs. We can identify and acquire the necessary supporting evidence, help you choose the right court or other tribunal, give any required notice, draft and file the complaint, and help you negotiate for a voluntary settlement. If your student's case does not settle, we can take the case to trial, enforce the judgment, and defend the judgment against any appeals. Let us help you and your student with this complex litigation for your student's best outcome.
Defending New York School Disciplinary Charges
Our attorneys can also defend your student against the school's disciplinary charges. It is sad but true that schools often charge the bullying victim with misconduct, requiring the victim to respond to disciplinary proceedings. Bullying victims often act out when school officials fail to promptly prevent and redress the bullying. Acting out may take the form of self-defense, disruption of classes, insubordination toward teachers and staff who failed to prevent the bullying harm, skipping class, ignoring assignments, or other truancy and academic progress issues. Our attorneys can defend the disciplinary charges while helping your student make the case for a monetary recovery for bullying harm.
Helping Your Student Avoid School Bullying
Your student isn't responsible for the bullying. Nor is your student responsible for stopping the bullying. Prevention is up to the school. However, your student may be able to take some steps to minimize the bullying harm. Make sure your student knows not to join the bully. Bullies sometimes use bullying to recruit other students to join in the bullying. Tell your student not to join in. Tell your student to let you know immediately when bullying occurs so that you can help make the appropriate report to hold the school accountable. Tell your student to tell teachers and other school staff, too, as soon as bullying occurs. Tell your student not to fear reprisal for reports because the school has the legal duty to prevent retaliation. And tell your student that you are getting our Education Law Team's help. Don't let your student feel as if your student is standing against bullying alone.
Premier Representation for New York Bullying Victims
Retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Education Law Team to pursue your student's civil action for monetary damages for bullying harm. We are available anywhere across New York. Our attorneys have helped hundreds of students nationwide successfully address bullying and other school conduct issues. Call 888.535.3686 now or chat with us. Let us help your student achieve the best possible outcome, and money damages recovery.
