Being bullied in school can be one of the most traumatic experiences that a child can go through. Any of us who has ever been tormented by a bully during our school years can sympathize with the pain that a bullied child experiences. And with social media allowing older children to take their bullying online, the ways that a student can be attacked have increased dramatically. While states across the nation, including Mississippi, have taken steps to outlaw bullying and to require schools to do something about it, these measures aren't always implemented effectively. If your child has been bullied at school in Mississippi, contact the Lento Law Firm Education Law Team. Our experienced attorneys will review your child's situation with you and can help you determine what the best approach might be to ending the harassment and compensating your child for their pain. Contact us at 888.535.3686, or use our contact form to set up a consultation to learn more about how the Lento Law Firm Education Law Team can help.
The Problem of Bullying in Mississippi's K-12 Schools
Despite efforts at the state and local level to combat in-school bullying, it continues to be a problem in schools across Mississippi. Parents whose children have been bullied have brought their concerns to the attention of the press, and some have held anti-bullying rallies to raise awareness with local school districts. While not necessarily a pervasive problem in Mississippi, bullying does continue to happen, and it's important if you're the parent or guardian of a school-age child to be alert to the possibility that your child may be being bullied at school and that the school may not be doing an effective job of putting a stop to it.
In addition to the obvious psychological harm that bullying can cause, students who are chronically bullied are likely to be less and less interested in school. Their attendance, learning, and grades may suffer. In some severe and extremely tragic cases, bullied students have attempted and succeeded in committing suicide.
The Lento Law Firm Education Law Team has prepared this summary of Mississippi's anti-bullying laws to help you understand what your rights are in situations where your child is being bullied in school. If you suspect or know that this is happening, take action. Contact us to learn more about what your rights are in what can be an extremely frustrating and even frightening situation. This is particularly important if it feels as though your child's school is not effectively dealing with a bullying situation. Don't let it continue one day longer than it has to. Let the Lento Law Firm Education Law Team help.
Mississippi Anti-Bullying Laws
The state of Mississippi recognizes that bullying in schools is a problem. State law makes it unlawful to “intimidate, threaten or coerce, or attempt to intimidate, threaten or coerce” any student “for the purpose of interfering with” the student's right to attend classes, or to cause the student not to attend classes. Violation can result in a six-month jail term and a $500 fine for anyone 18 or over, and younger offenders will be treated as delinquents in Mississippi youth court. State law, more specifically, “bullying or harassing behavior” on school property, at school functions, or on school transportation. School personnel are required to report bullying to school officials.
Local boards of education are required by Mississippi statute to provide schools with anti-bullying materials, and school boards are required to “incorporate evidence-based practices and positive behavioral intervention supports into individual school district policies and Codes of Conduct.” These must include guidance for “peer mediation programs” and teacher guidance for including “conflict resolution and mediation lessons” in their classroom curriculum. In addition, school districts are also required to have policies in place that prohibit bullying and retaliation against someone who reports bullying.
The districts must have procedures for notifying parents about bullying incidents. Schools may not discipline a student simply for using “reasonable self-defense in response to the bullying” and must recognize that sometimes students must defend themselves when they're being bullied. Each school district is required to post its bullying reporting procedure on its website, as the Jackson Public School district has done here.
Mississippi's Bullying Definition
Mississippi law defines “bullying or harassing behavior” as including the following:
- A pattern of communications, including “any pattern of gestures or written, electronic or verbal communications” or
- A “physical act,” or
- A “threatening communication” or
- An action that is “motivated by any actual or perceived differentiating characteristic” (such as race, physical appearance, religion, etc);
- That happens on school property (including at a school function or on school transportation);
- That makes a student feel as though they may be harmed, or their property may be damaged, or
- That creates a hostile environment that interferes with the student's education.
By including electronic communications, Mississippi acknowledges that a substantial amount of bullying can take place on social media platforms. This can be difficult to regulate – the Mississippi anti-bullying laws apply to on-campus bullying only – but in many cases, students engaging in online bullying are doing so while in school, at a school function, or on school transportation.
There are many different types of actions that can be considered bullying in Mississippi. For example:
- Making threats against a student or their property;
- Taunting a student for any number of reasons;
- Posting damaging, false, or embarrassing information about a student on any number of Internet forums;
- Encouraging others to bully or taunt another student;
- Making the student's race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or sex (male or female) part of bullying statements made against the student;
- And, of course, using physical force against a student
Mississippi Liability Laws Protecting Bullying Victims
Mississippi anti-bullying laws don't specifically provide a way for a bullied student or their family to recover against a school or school district that allowed bullying to happen. In many cases, public entities such as school districts are immune from lawsuits for a range of actions unless Mississippi law provides an exemption. Figuring out when and how these exemptions work and whether they can provide you with a remedy in cases where a school or school district has failed to act as required by law in response to reports of bullying is something that the Lento Law Firm Education Law Team can help you with.
Bringing a Lawsuit Against a School or School District on Behalf of a Bullying Victim
Unlike suing a private entity, before you can sue a public entity such as a school district in Mississippi, you may have to serve it with a notice of the claim you are making. This is a separate step that, if you fail to meet the requirements, can prevent you from being able to file a lawsuit in a bullying case. There are specific procedures that apply to these notices, and they must contain a description of the facts supporting the claim and the amount of damages you're seeking. They need to be served on a specific person in a certain way to be considered valid. Once served with the notice of claim, the school district has 90 days to respond; if it fails to respond or refuses the claim, you're then generally free to file a lawsuit.
Serving the notice of claim extends the one-year statute of limitations (the time period in which you have to sue the school district) in a bullying case. It will pause the limitations period for 95 days after the notice of claim is received. Practically speaking, because the goal of most bullying lawsuits is primarily to force the school district to take effective action against bullying, it makes sense to serve the notice of claim very shortly after you've determined that the school or school district's response to your child's situation is inadequate and does not meet the legal requirements imposed by Mississippi law.
It's also important to include all of your potential reasons for making a claim against the school or school district in your notice of claim. If you leave one out, you may be prevented from including that reason in any lawsuit that may follow.
Because of the numerous requirements that apply to an effectively drafted and served notice of claim, you will benefit by having the assistance of an experienced attorney from the Lento Law Firm Education Law Team working with you on the notice. Our attorneys can make sure the notice meets the requirements of Mississippi law in terms of the information included in the notice, the amount demanded in compensation, and the requirements for properly serving it on the appropriate public official.
Potential Lawsuit Defendants for Mississippi Bullying Liability
In most cases, even though you may want to sue specific people at your child's school who have been responsible for the school's failures to act on bullying reports, those people will be immune from personal liability for their actions. That's not to say that they will never be liable; an employee who acts (or fails to act) maliciously or willfully might be able to be held personally liable for their actions. As a result, in many cases, lawsuits will name public entities such as school districts as defendants but will also name specific individuals at the school responsible for failing to take steps to put a stop to bullying.
In most bullying lawsuits, the claim will be that the school or school district negligently failed to take the steps required by law to try to prevent bullying. This can include failing to act on reports of bullying, failing to have an effective bullying reporting system in place, illegally disciplining a child for defending themselves against bullying, and other types of claims.
Who to name as a defendant in a lawsuit is an important and sometimes difficult decision that needs to be made before you draft a complaint and file the lawsuit. The Lento Law Firm Education Law Team can help determine who the defendants will be based on your particular situation.
Mississippi Personal Injury Laws Protecting Bullying Victims
Mississippi doesn't have specific laws that provide a special remedy to someone who is injured – physically or mentally – as a result of being bullied or as a result of a school's failure to enforce Mississippi's anti-bullying laws. That said, schools and school employees can be sued for negligence when they ignore, refuse, or fail to act as required by state anti-bullying law, and your child suffers injury as a result. This type of liability is called tort liability and is a very common basis for suing when an individual is damaged because of someone else's negligent acts.
In some fairly rare cases, there may be a claim that a school employee willfully failed to enforce Mississippi's anti-bullying requirements because the employee intended for the child to suffer. In these cases, a lawsuit against the school and the employee may be based on the employee's willful violation of Mississippi law.
There are a wide variety of potential tort claims that might apply in a bullying situation. It depends on the harm that the child has suffered. Potential claims include assault, battery, defamation (where false statements are spread about the student), invasion of privacy (where the student's personal information or certain images are sent to others without permission), and infliction of emotional distress. In certain limited cases, there may also be remedies based on federal law, as will be discussed below.
The Lento Law Firm Education Law Team is able to advise you on what types of claims to bring depending on your student's particular set of facts. It's important to consider all possibilities before filing so that the complaint is as complete and as forceful as possible.
Mississippi Private School Liability to Bullying Victims
Private schools in Mississippi operate outside of many of the requirements that apply to public schools. At the same time, they do not enjoy the same immunity from suit or requirement that a notice of claim be served before a suit can be filed. The extent to which a private school or private school employee may be held liable for failing to put a stop to reported bullying will depend considerably on the particular situation and what the school's anti-bullying policies are. The Lento Law Firm Education Law Team can help you review your child's situation in light of the law and the school's policies to determine the extent to which a lawsuit may be effective and, if so, what claims to bring and against which defendants.
Federal Anti-Bullying Laws Supporting Civil Liability
At present, there are no federal laws that specifically prohibit bullying, hazing, and similar types of misconduct in grades K-12. There are, however, a number of federal laws that may apply in cases where – as is often the case – bullying actions are combined with discriminatory behavior against a particular student. Some of these laws give injured parties what's known as a “private right of action” – permission to bring a federal lawsuit for damages when the law is violated. Examples of some of these private right-of-action laws that can apply where a student has been bullied include:
- Section 1983 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This section allows someone whose civil rights have been violated by a government official (such as a public school teacher or school administrator) to sue for violating that person's civil rights – including “any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws.”
- Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This prohibits discrimination based on “race, color, religion, sex or national origin.” It may apply in some situations where the bullying includes words or actions showing discriminatory intent.
- Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This prohibits an entity that receives federal funding – as most public schools, and some private schools, do – from discriminating against any individual. Schools that allow bullying to occur in a discriminatory way might be liable under this provision.
- Title IX of the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987. This is what's commonly known as “Title IX” and may be familiar due to its impact on collegiate women's sports funding. It applies in other areas, however, and guarantees students “an educational environment free from discrimination on the basis of sex.” It may support an anti-bullying lawsuit where the bullying took the form of sexual assault, sexual harassment, or other words or actions that were directed toward the sex or sexual orientation of the bullied student.
- Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. This protects students with disabilities from discrimination by schools that receive federal funding. In cases where a school fails to stop other students from bullying a student with a disability, this law may provide a civil remedy.
- Title II of the Americans With Disabilities Act. This prohibits schools and other public entities from discriminating against disabled students and requires schools to reasonably accommodate students with disabilities. If a school fails to reasonably accommodate a disabled student, and the student is exposed to bullying as a result, this may constitute a violation of the law that can be remedied by a civil lawsuit.
- The Individuals With Disabilities Education Act. The focus of this law is to require schools to provide disabled students with a “free appropriate public education.” Schools are expected to provide such students with services “designed to meet their unique needs.” In cases where a school failed to meet its obligations under this law so that a disabled student was more readily exposed to situations that encouraged bullying, there may be a remedy under this law.
You'll note one similarity that all of these federal “private right of action” laws have – in almost every case, you'll need something more than just bullying in order to support the federal claim. For example, you may need to show that the bullying actions against your child were motivated by their race, sex or sexual orientation, national origin, disability, religion, or some other personal attribute that is protected by federal law. You'll also need to show that the school failed to take appropriate action once it became aware of the bullying – and in particular, once it became aware of the discriminatory aspect of the bullying. The Lento Law Firm Education Law Team can help you review the facts of your child's particular bullying situation to determine whether any federal laws have been violated and, if so, whether adding them to your lawsuit may be appropriate.
Compensation for Bullying Victims in Mississippi Schools
You can sue to recover the actual and anticipated costs that result from the school's failure to follow the state's anti-bullying requirements. These are also known as compensatory damages and essentially reimburse you for what you've spent in the past on things like medical and psychological treatment and replacement of damaged or stolen property. You may also be able to receive compensation for future damages, such as the cost of continuing medical or psychological treatment, where those numbers can be determined with a reasonable amount of accuracy.
Non-economic damages may also be awarded in these types of cases. They include damages for pain, suffering, emotional distress, embarrassment, humiliation, and similar types of mental harm that can be difficult to measure precisely but that often are significantly larger than compensatory damages.
Note that under Mississippi law, damages claims against public entities “for all claims arising out of single occurrence” are limited to a maximum of $500,000.
Pre-Suit Steps to Take With Your Mississippi School When Your Child is Bullied
Mississippi law imposes certain requirements on public schools to implement anti-bullying measures. It's important for any lawsuit – and, of course, for the well-being of your child – that you have done your best to follow the school's anti-bullying reporting steps if your child is being bullied. Make sure you have reviewed and understand your school's anti-bullying reporting procedures, and make a record of every contact you have with the school about the bullying incident or incidents. The record should include when you reported it, who you reported it to, and what it was you reported. If you make a report by phone, record this information in a note or an email to yourself. If you communicate with the school by email, save all emails going both ways.
If the school notifies you that your child has been bullied, follow up on that. Make sure you stay on top of the situation, and record every communication to and from the school about it. The school should advise you of opportunities for your child to receive counseling to help them with the situation. If it doesn't, ask the school about them, and again – keep a record of each request and response.
Giving the school a chance to handle the situation is a necessary prerequisite to suing them for their failure to do so. And in most cases, it's the best chance you'll have to put an early stop to the bullying. These are the two main reasons why it's important to follow the school's anti-bullying policies and procedures.
Pursuing a Mississippi Civil Action on Behalf of a Bullying Victim
When things have gotten to the point where you believe you have a claim against your child's school arising out of a bullying incident or a series of incidents, it typically means that your child has endured a substantial amount of abuse and the school has failed to effectively put a stop to it. That is when it helps to have the advice of the experienced attorneys from the Lento Law Firm Education Law Team. We'll discuss the situation with you and advise you of your rights under Mississippi law.
When the potential lawsuit is against a public school or school district, we'll draft and serve an effective notice of claim so that you preserve your rights to sue the school or school district. Assuming the claim is rejected, we will then work with you to prepare and file a lawsuit, which will involve a number of steps, including:
- Preparing and filing a complaint.
- Responding to any motions filed by the school or school district to dismiss the complaint (a common response).
- Participating in discovery, which is a period of time after the complaint has been filed where both sides exchange information about the case. This can include depositions of witnesses and a review of a broad range of documents relating to the complaint.
- During the lawsuit, there are typically one or more chances to settle the matter. We'll advise you when a settlement may – or may not – be appropriate and will negotiate with the defendants on your and your child's behalf.
- Either side may file motions to try to end the case or reduce the issues for trial.
- In some cases, the court may encourage the parties to participate in a mediation session to attempt to resolve the case without a trial.
- If the case does go to trial, we will represent you and your child in court and will work to present the strongest case possible.
- If a judgment is issued in your favor, we'll take the necessary steps to collect it for you. In cases where the result is not in your favor, we can typically represent you in an appeal.
This extremely brief summary of the lawsuit process leaves out many details that our experienced education law attorneys will be happy to explain to you.
Defending Disciplinary Charges Against a Bullying Victim
While Mississippi law specifically prohibits schools from disciplining students who defend themselves against bullying, teachers and school administrators don't always take the time to understand the situation when a bullied student tries to protect themselves. The Lento Law Firm Education Law Team has helped defend students from disciplinary proceedings in schools all across the country, including in Mississippi. We can help you protect your child against their school's failure to follow Mississippi law relating to self-defense in a bullying situation. Contact us to learn more about our experience in these areas.
Helping Your Student Avoid Mississippi School Bullying
Make sure your child understands that the sooner they report a bullying incident to school authorities – and to you – the more likely it is the school will be able to do something about it. This can be very difficult for children to do, particularly when they are likely to face their bully every single day. If your child knows that you and the school are on their side, it will make communication easier and reduce the chances that the bullying will continue and do real harm to your child.
Premier Representation for Mississippi Bullying Victims
The Lento Law Firm Education Law Team has helped families all over the country – including in Mississippi – deal with situations where schools are not meeting their obligations to put a stop to bullying. We are here to listen and to learn about your child's situation and to give you the advice and support you need to decide what next steps to take to help put a stop to the bullying and to compensate your child for the damages and pain (physical and mental) that they've suffered.
Call the Lento Law firm today at 888.535.3686 or use our contact form to set up a confidential consultation with one of our Education Law Team members. Your child deserves to feel safe at school; let us help make that happen.
