Ohio Bullying Victim Attorneys
If you have a student in Ohio's elementary and secondary schools, you want to ensure that your student does not suffer the damaging effects of school bullying. Ohio's legislature is on your side. Ohio grade school teachers, staff, and officials have a legal duty to prevent bullying of students. If your student suffers bullying nonetheless, you and your student have specific remedies that you may be able to pursue within the school, with Ohio state regulators, and in civil court for monetary damages. You and your student may be able to recover compensatory monetary damages for your student's bullying harm. Retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Education Law Team to assist you with your student's civil litigation for monetary damages due to Ohio grade school bullying.
Bullying in Ohio K-12 Schools
Ohio's legislature has recognized that bullying is a problem to address in Ohio kindergarten through grade twelve schools. Ohio's School Bullying Prevention and Awareness Act designates September of every year as School Bullying Prevention Awareness Month to publicize policies required in every school in the state to prohibit harassment, intimidation, and bullying. Ohio grade school students face bullying, hazing, and similar forms of harassment with such frequency and with so great of a detrimental effect that the state's legislature provides you with clear remedies. Bullying can seriously affect your student's mental and emotional health, physical and social development, academic progress, and overall welfare. The National Library of Medicine documents suicide rates closely associated with school bullying, endured by as many as one out of five grade-school students. The Centers for Disease Control finds that bullied students suffer increased depression, academic deficiencies, and school dropout. Don't let that be your Ohio grade school student. Retain our attorneys to enforce your student's anti-bullying rights through civil money damages and other claims.
Ohio's Anti-Bullying Laws
Ohio law requires schools to fight bullying and provide anti-bullying relief. Ohio Revised Code Section 3313.666 requires every Ohio grade school to adopt a policy prohibiting harassment, intimidation, and bullying. Section 3301.22 requires the state department of education to develop and publish a model anti-bullying policy for the schools to adopt. Section 3313.667 requires every Ohio grade school receiving state or federal anti-bullying funding to “provide training, workshops, or courses” on the anti-bullying policy “to school employees and volunteers who have direct contact with students.” Section 3319.073 requires schools to provide in-service anti-bullying training in the state's mandated form. Other provisions of Ohio's School Bullying Prevention and Awareness Act require school districts to report and the state to audit districts on the adoption and effect of their anti-bullying policies and measures. Ohio's legislature stands behind you to help you protect your student against bullying.
Ohio's Bullying Definition
Ohio law also defines what constitutes bullying for purposes of the above anti-bullying enforcement provisions. Ohio Revised Code Section 3313.666 defines harassment, intimidation, or bullying as “any intentional written, verbal, electronic, or physical act that a student has exhibited toward another particular student more than once” that also “causes mental or physical harm to the other student” and “is sufficiently severe, persistent, or pervasive that it creates an intimidating, threatening, or abusive educational environment for the other student.” Violence in a dating relationship also qualifies as bullying. Ohio's anti-bullying laws do not give other examples, but the following acts may fall within Ohio's bullying definition:
- physical violence like shoving, slapping, spitting, pulling hair, kicking, fighting, tripping, poking, and pinching in ways that intimidate and abuse the victim student;
- threats, taunts, and demeaning words and actions short of physical violence that intimidate and oppress the victim student in ways that diminish and destroy the educational environment;
- cyberbullying using a cellphone, computer, or other electronic device to share threatening and harassing communications, having the same purpose and effect of creating a hostile educational environment;
- indirect gossip, slander, libel, and rumors spread among peers having the same purpose and effect of creating a hostile educational environment for the victim student;
- using threats, harassment, or other intimidating communications to coerce and extort the victim student's action, whether to withdraw from school programs and relinquish school benefits or give up property or other rights and interests, and
- any of the above acts of bullying, harassment, and intimidation referencing the victim student's race, sex, disability, religion, or other protected characteristics.
Ohio Civil Liability Laws Compensating Bullying Victims
Ohio's anti-bullying laws do not, on their own terms, create a private right to file a civil action for monetary damages. To the contrary, Ohio's School Bullying Prevention and Awareness Act states expressly that its core section “does not create a new cause of action or a substantive legal right for any person.” You must look to other Ohio laws outside of the anti-bullying act for authority for a civil money damages action. The authority for a civil money damages recovery in Ohio for school bullying is complex and technical. But recoveries have been made, including a multi-million dollar recovery on behalf of the estate of an eight-year-old boy who committed suicide following multiple alleged acts of bullying in an Ohio public school. Let our skilled and experienced attorneys help you evaluate your student's claim for monetary damages for Ohio grade school bullying harm.
Ohio Governmental Liability Laws and Bullying Victims
Ohio is among the many states that claim sovereign immunity and prohibit civil money damages actions against the state or its political subdivisions unless Ohio statute expressly authorizes such an action. Ohio's Political Subdivision Tort Liability Act, Ohio Revised Code Chapter 2744, first provides that local agencies, which would include local public schools, are immune from civil liability. But the act then provides an exception to that sovereign immunity, in certain specified instances allowing persons suffering personal injuries to sue local governments, including public schools. Those exceptions include negligence in the performance of a proprietary function.
But even as to those exceptions, the student's representatives may have to show that the school owed a special duty to the student. Ohio governmental liability laws are not favorable to bullying claims against schools or school officials. Let our attorneys help you evaluate whether your student has a governmental liability claim for negligence by the school and its officials in reasonably preventing bullying. In all likelihood, your student may instead need to rely on federal law for a civil money damages recovery.
Ohio Personal Injury Laws and Bullying Victims
Ohio's Political Subdivision Tort Liability Act, Ohio Revised Code Chapter 2744, does not define the tort claims under which a school might, in an extraordinary case, have bullying liability. If your student could qualify for one of the exceptions to sovereign immunity and prove a special duty to prevent bullying, your student would still have to prove an Ohio tort claim. The most likely such claim would be negligence, which is a failure to use reasonable care causing the bullying injury. Examples of negligence involving student bullying could include:
- the failure of school officials to reasonably monitor the school to prevent bullying after notice of the specific bullying threat to the specific victim;
- the failure of school officials to promptly intervene to stop bullying that they know or reasonably should know is going on, causing the student's injury;
- the failure of school officials to reasonably separate and protect students known to be bullying victims from a known wrongdoer;
- the failure of school officials to reasonably investigate bullying complaints, take reasonably prompt action on those complaints and reasonably prevent retaliation for bullying complaints.
Your student may instead have an assault, battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, defamation, or invasion of privacy claim if the school officials themselves, such as a teacher, were involved in the bullying or ratified bullying by others. Your student's school could also potentially be vicariously liable for tortious bullying by teachers or other school employees. But these claims all hinge on the question of sovereign immunity, when Ohio law generally provides broad immunity in these kinds of cases. Consult our attorneys to determine your student's state-law bullying claim. Chances are better that your student will have a federal law claim for money damages.
Ohio Private School Liability to Bullying Victims
Ohio's governmental immunity provisions do not apply to Ohio private schools. That means that you may generally sue an Ohio private school under the same tort claims you could maintain against a private individual or private corporation. Those claims include all of the negligence and intentional tort theories stated above. You have a far better likelihood of recovering money damages under Ohio state law against a private school than a public school. Let us help evaluate and pursue your claim.
Federal Laws Compensating for Bullying Harm
Federal law does not directly prohibit bullying. Nor does federal law expressly create a private right of action against a public school for negligent failure to prevent bullying. However, one federal law, 42 USC Section 1983, creates a private right of action when state actors violate a person's constitutional rights under the color of state law. Under controlling case authority like Jones v. Reynolds, 438 F.3d 685, 690 (6th Cir. 2006), you may be able to file a Section 1983 action in federal court for money damages from the school under a state-created danger exception. Alternatively, under controlling case authority like Soper v. Hoben, 195 F.3d 845, 852 (6th Cir. 1999), you may be able to file a federal money damages action under a special relationship exception. Or, under controlling case authority like Range v. Douglas, 763 F.3d 573, 588 (6th Cir. 2014), you may be able to file federal money damages action under a shocks the conscience standard. These theories are complex and narrow but were bases for the Ohio bullying lawsuit mentioned above, resulting in a multi-million dollar recovery.
Bullying Compensation Under Federal Anti-Discrimination Laws
You may have another avenue for school compensation for bullying harms if you have evidence that the bullying occurred in connection with discrimination against your student based on your student's protected category or characteristic. Bullying often does pick on a student who exhibits a protected characteristic or the bully believes bears a protected characteristic. Section 1983 or other law may create a private right of action against the school for violating one or more of these anti-discrimination laws connected with the bullying:
- Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 requires schools receiving federal funding to grant equal educational access to students with disabilities;
- Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act requires public and private schools to reasonably accommodate students with disabilities and
- the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) ensuring a free appropriate public education to students with disabilities;
- Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits public school discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin;
- Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits public or private schools receiving federal funding from discrimination based on race, color, or national origin and
- Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibits public or private schools receiving federal funding from violating rules relating to sexual assault, sexual harassment, stalking, dating violence, and domestic violence.
Potential Lawsuit Defendants for Ohio Bullying Liability
The usual defendant in a state or federal law claim for monetary damages for bullying is the school or school district, not the individual school officials who may have negligently ignored and refused to address and prevent the bullying. The above federal anti-discrimination laws generally apply to the school, not the individual school officials, likewise with the liability exceptions to the Ohio state governmental immunity laws that generally apply to the school, not the individual school officials. If you have a negligence claim against a school employee, it would generally be against the employee in the employee's official school capacity rather than individual capacity, meaning that the school itself would likely defend and indemnify the employee. If, on the other hand, a school employee commits an intentional tort relating to the bullying, like assaulting your student, then the employee may have individual liability, but the school may not have vicarious liability, depending on the circumstances. Let us help you discern the proper defendants.
Compensation for Ohio Bullying Victims
If you are able to make a money damages recovery for your student for bullying harm, more likely under federal law than Ohio law, then the damages could be substantial. Ohio law provides for both compensatory damages, to make your student whole again by a monetary award, and punitive damages where the wrong is sufficiently serious as to deserve punishment. Ohio law permits a punitive damages award in personal injury cases only on evidence of the defendant's malice, referring to a desire to harm. Ohio law also caps punitive damages at twice compensatory damages up to a maximum of $350,000.
Compensatory damages are more likely in the usual bullying case against the school, where school officials do not act with malice but are negligent in failing to prevent malicious acts by students or others. Compensatory damages include both economic and non-economic loss. Economic loss is an out-of-pocket loss like counseling expenses, medical expenses, expenses to replace damaged, stolen, or destroyed personal property like eyewear, clothing, backpacks, and electronic devices, and work loss or lost earning capacity. Non-economic loss is pain and suffering, mental and emotional distress, fear, fright, shock, embarrassment, humiliation, and other loss of the enjoyment of life. Juries may award substantially greater non-economic damages in bullying cases than economic damages because of the psychological, mental, emotional, and developmental injury from the offense.
Pursuing a Civil Action in Ohio for a Bullying Victim
If your student has a civil claim for money damages from the school or school officials, more likely under federal law than Ohio law, given the sovereign immunity Ohio law typically applies, then you will need our Education Law Team's skill and experience to pursue that claim to best effect. Federal Civil Section 1983 litigation is so technical and complex that most attorneys are not qualified to undertake it. Just because a lawyer practices civil litigation in the state and federal courts does not mean the lawyer has the necessary skills and experience. When you retain us, we can help you ensure that you are meeting every required step for your student's best possible outcome.
Our attorneys can conduct the thorough pre-suit investigation necessary to support the narrow theories of recovery. We can draft and file a complaint setting forth those theories to the court's satisfaction while making a compelling case for your student's monetary recovery. Our attorneys can negotiate with the school's general counsel or outside retained counsel and engage in mediation or other alternative dispute resolution toward an early voluntary resolution that achieves your goals for your student. If your student's case does not resolve voluntarily, we can pursue discovery of the school's evidence while responding to the school's discovery requests and handling pretrial motions. Our attorneys can then present the necessary evidence and challenge the school's defense evidence, including cross-examining defense witnesses, at trial. We can also help you collect on the judgment and pursue or defend appeals. Our attorneys may offer many more services to pursue and achieve your goals for your student's money damages recovery for bullying harm.
Defending Disciplinary Charges Against Bullying Victims
Do not be surprised if your student faces disciplinary charges, even though they are a victim of bullying. When school officials fail to prevent and address bullying, the bullied student must act in the student's own defense. Bullying can cause severe mental, emotional, and physical harm. The threat of those harms may lead your student to take aggressive action in self-defense. School officials who ignore the bullying of your student and who unlawfully and unwisely encourage your student to ignore it may file disciplinary charges against your student when your student acts in self-defense. Bullied students may also act out in class or other school settings because of the bullying, resulting in disciplinary charges for interfering with instruction and for disrespecting teachers and school officials.
If your student faces disciplinary charges for acting in self-defense of bullying or when acting out due to the bullying harm, our attorneys can help you defend and defeat those charges. Our attorneys can appear on your student's behalf, help you answer the school's disciplinary complaint, and help you present evidence of the bullying both as a defense to the disciplinary charges and for affirmative relief, including monetary damages. We may also help you seek alternative special relief through the school's general counsel office, outside retained counsel, or other oversight channels.
Help Your Student Avoid Ohio School Bullying
Bullying is, by its nature, intimidating. Your student may find it very difficult to know how to respond to bullying other than becoming a bullying victim. But your student may be able to take steps both to help your student avoid and minimize bullying and to help your student's case for money damages recovery through civil litigation. First, help your student understand that your student must not join the bullies in bullying other students, even if the bullies threaten your student to recruit your student into joining in bullying harm. Instead, help your student understand that your student should immediately share with you any instances of bullying so that you can notify school officials to protect your student. Help your student understand that school officials must ensure that no one retaliates against your student for reporting the bullying. Make sure your student also knows to report the bullying to teachers and school staff the moment it occurs. Your student may also be able to recruit other students to help your student resist and report the bullying. The key is that your student does not feel as if your student must defend bullying alone.
Premier Legal Representation for Ohio Bullying Victims
Retain the Lento Law Firm's Education Law Team to represent your Ohio grade school student in civil litigation to recover money damages for bullying incidents and harms. We have helped hundreds of students nationwide enforce their legal rights on all issues, including bullying, intimidation, harassment, and other harms. Call 888.535.3686 now or chat with us for the skilled and experienced representation you need to protect your Ohio student.
