National Attorneys for Bullying Victims

School Bullying Victim Representation

Let our premier attorneys help if you are the parent or guardian of a grade school student who faces bullying that school officials are unwilling to prevent. State laws across the country vary widely but generally prohibit bullying. Those laws place the responsibility on school officials to discourage, prevent, and punish bullying. When school officials do not do so, state and federal laws may authorize money damages claims through civil court litigation for the bullying victim. Our attorneys may be able to help you sue the school and district that have failed in their duties to prevent bullying. You may be able not only to stop the bullying but also recover a substantial monetary award for your student's bullying harm. Don't ignore bullying. Instead, hold school officials accountable. Let our premier Education Law Team help.

The Problem of Bullying in K-12 Schools

Bullying is no minor matter. Legislators, policymakers, and school officials nationwide recognize how serious the harm can be from school bullying. A study reported in the National Library of Medicine documents that suicide rates among school-age children are closely associated with school bullying. School bullying can have that serious of an effect on a student's mental health and emotional well-being. Bullying can slow a student's mental, physical, and social development and interfere with academic growth and achievement. The Centers for Disease Control reports that bullied students, constituting as many as one in five students, face an increased risk of depression, anxiety, sleeplessness, low and failing grades, holding back a year, truancy, and school dropout. Get our Education Law Team's help for your bullied student before your student suffers further harm.

State Anti-Bullying Laws

The federal government tracks and reports on state anti-bullying laws. The federal report shows that forty-seven of fifty U.S. states have enacted laws that prohibit bullying. If your grade school student is suffering bullying, that bullying very likely violates your state's declared anti-bullying law. The state laws that prohibit bullying generally also state how bullying harms students. Those state laws recognize that bullying impacts student learning and engagement, school safety, and school culture and environment. If your student's school officials minimize bullying, you can likely point them to your state's laws to show them bullying's serious harms. These state laws generally prohibit any form of bullying, including verbal threats, teasing, taunting, shaming, and cyberbullying, not just physical assaults. The state laws also generally require teachers, school staff, principals, and other school officials to take immediate action to investigate, prevent, and address bullying.

State Law Bullying Definitions

According to a federal report, forty-seven of fifty U.S. states have enacted laws that not only prohibit but also define bullying. Those definitions vary widely. But in general, states define bullying to mean intentional efforts to harm another student through physical or verbal means. States generally also include cyberbullying, or the use of electronic communication devices, within their bullying definitions. States write their definitions so that you, your student, and the school's teachers, staff, principal, and board can clearly understand what bullying includes. State bullying definitions also commonly include illustrative examples. Under those widely varying state definitions, bullying could potentially include any of the following acts:

• physical contact like spitting, striking, slugging, shoving, tripping, pulling hair, poking, grabbing or tearing clothing, and fighting;
• knocking books from the victim's arms, pulling a backpack, bag, or purse from the student's back, shoulder, hand, or arm, or otherwise forcefully depriving a student of personal property or items;
• pretending, attempting, or threatening to do any of the above physical acts, even if not actually accomplished, with the purpose of creating a reasonable fear of imminent contact;
• using a computer, cellphone, tablet, or other electronic device to post or send texts, emails, messages, accounts, or other communications that threaten, demean, embarrass, or oppress;
• taking, making, altering, posting, sharing, or otherwise distributing videos, photographs, drawings, or other images that demean, embarrass, shame, or oppress;
• creating or sharing rumors, gossip, slander, or other words, images, or information that encourages others to ostracize, reject, exclude, and isolate the victim student;
• acts of hazing, intimidation, coercion, conversion, embezzlement, or extortion that threaten, embarrass, or oppress the student victim to give up rights, privileges, or benefits;
• harassment based on race, color, national origin, ethnicity, religion, sex or sexual orientation, or other protected characteristics or commitment; and
• retaliation for resisting, reporting, or otherwise attempting to avoid and redress bullying.

State Liability Laws Compensating Bullying Victims

State anti-bullying laws do not generally create private rights of action to sue the school or school officials for bullying harm. State anti-bullying laws generally stop at requiring schools to prevent bullying without taking the next step of ensuring compensation for bullying victims. You may have to look to other state laws, outside of the specific laws prohibiting bullying, to pursue compensation for your student through civil litigation. Bullying victims, though, may find that their state's governmental liability laws permit civil money damages actions in certain cases, including in some bullying cases. And your state's tort laws may provide a sound and even strong basis for pursuing a claim against the school or its officials. Our attorneys can help you and your student evaluate potential monetary damages claims to compensate your student for bullying harms.

Governmental Liability Laws Permitting Lawsuits by Bullying Victims

States generally claim sovereign immunity against civil lawsuits. The idea of sovereign immunity is that you must have the sovereign's permission to sue the sovereign using the sovereign's courts. But many states promptly waive that immunity, at least for certain wrongful acts, under what those states may call a tort claims act or governmental liability statute. Many of those states that permit you to sue state and local government agencies, including public grade schools, authorize civil actions for bullying harm in certain cases. Despite governmental immunity, your student may well have a civil money damages action against the school for bullying harms. Let us help you determine your student's rights under your state's law to pursue a civil action for monetary damages.

Special Conditions of Governmental Liability Laws for Bullying Harms

States that waive sovereign immunity and permit civil lawsuits for monetary damages against public agencies, including public schools, generally impose special procedures and conditions. Governmental liability lawsuits are generally complex. In many states, even those authorizing lawsuits for bullying harm, you cannot simply sue the school in state court as you would sue a private individual or corporation for other harm. Those special procedures and conditions vary widely from state to state. Many attorneys, even those who practice civil litigation, will not attempt a governmental liability lawsuit or may be unqualified to pursue one without substantial additional experience. Some of the common procedures for governmental liability actions include:

• early written notice to the school or school district of your student's potential claim, including specific information related to the claim;
• a strict and short time within which to give the school or school district notice of your student's claim, after which the law may bar the claim;
• rules for the potential extension of notice requirements that may allow your student to file a late claim;
• rules and time limits for the school's acceptance, investigation, review, and settlement or rejection of your student's claim; and
• your student's right to sue in civil court only on a showing that your student's claim meets the above special procedures.

Potential Defendants in Bullying Liability Claims

The usual defendant in a civil money damage claim for bullying is the school or school district, not the individual school officials most responsible for failing to prevent or correct the harm. Your first thought may be that you want to sue and hold accountable the teacher, school principal, or other school official who failed or refused to protect your student against the bullying, even after you or your student reported the bullying. However, the state laws that permit money damage suits against schools generally prohibit suits against the individual school employees or officials whom you may want to hold accountable for the harm.

While state laws vary widely regarding individual liability, many of those laws provide immunity to the individual who acts within the course or scope of their public employment. The idea is that individual liability might otherwise paralyze public officials or discourage qualified candidates from serving. Generally, individual liability accrues only when the individual acts outside the course or scope of employment, committing an unauthorized intentional or deliberate harmful act. But let our attorneys evaluate whether the school, school district, responsible teacher, or other school officials are the appropriate defendants.

State Negligence Law Compensating Bullying Victims

The state tort claims act, and governmental liability statutes permitting money damages claims against public schools vary widely but do not generally name the specific causes of action under which you would sue. Instead, they tend to authorize lawsuits under certain circumstances where the state's tort laws would otherwise provide for an action if the defendant were a private individual or corporation rather than a governmental agency. In short, you may have to prove a tort claim under your state's personal injury laws.

Negligence is the primary tort claim a student would generally pursue to hold school officials accountable for bullying committed by other students that the school should have prevented. Negligence generally means a failure to use reasonable care when under a duty to do so. Some state governmental liability laws may require the student to prove gross negligence rather than ordinary negligence to overcome governmental immunity. Gross negligence has varying definitions but may mean a deliberate or reckless disregard of a known high probability of harm. Examples of negligence or gross negligence involving bullying could include:

• the failure or refusal to reasonably intervene to stop fights, threats, or other acts of ongoing bullying, instead standing by while permitting or even appearing to authorize the wrongful acts;
• the failure or refusal to reasonably monitor school premises after notice that bullying was occurring at certain times and in certain places by certain wrongdoers;
• the failure or refusal to reasonably investigate reports of bullying to identify, remove, and discipline the bullies so as to prevent continuing and future occurrences;
• the failure or refusal to reasonably protect bullying victims after notice of the bullying by separating the bullies, assigning personnel to observe and prevent bullying, and taking other actions;
• the failure or refusal to reasonably and promptly follow school procedures regarding bullying after notice of bullying incidents; and
• the failure or refusal to prevent retaliation against the bullying victim after reports of bullying reach the wrongdoer or others sympathetic to the wrongdoer's wrongs.

Other State Tort Laws Compensating Bullying Victims

While negligence or gross negligence is the common tort claim that bullying victims may assert, where state governmental liability laws permit a student to sue the school for personal injury, state tort laws may permit other tort claims when school officials are themselves responsible for the bullying. The usual case of bullying involves students bullying other students, not teachers or staff bullying students. The usual case for compensation thus involves holding the school accountable for failing to prevent those student wrongs. But in extreme cases, teachers or other school staff may themselves be the bullies.

In those cases, state intentional tort law may provide civil claims for assault, battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, defamation in its oral slander or written libel form, and invasion of privacy. Those intentional tort claims may be available against the individual school employee, not just the school itself. Indeed, in those intentional tort cases, the school's liability becomes problematic. The school will defend on the basis that the school did not authorize the employee to commit intentional wrongs. Your student's case against the school may then depend on showing that the school negligently hired, negligently supervised, or wrongfully ratified the school employee's intentional wrong. Our attorneys can help you evaluate your student's claims.

Private School Liability to Compensate Bullying Victims

If your student attends a private rather than a public school, then your student's rights to recover monetary damages in civil litigation against the private school may be significantly greater than a student's similar rights against a public school. Private schools are not governmental agencies. Private schools do not have governmental immunity. Your student may be able to hold your student's private school and its teachers or other officials liable in the same manner one would hold any private individual or corporation liable, without regard to governmental immunity laws.

Federal Anti-Bullying Laws and Civil Liability

Federal law does not specifically authorize money damages suits for bullying harms. Indeed, no federal law expressly prohibits bullying while requiring state and local school officials to prevent bullying or correct bullying's effects. Congress has limited power over state agencies, including public schools. Congress has deferred to state legislators to outlaw bullying.

On the other hand, several federal laws prohibit certain forms of discrimination in schools. Those unlawful forms of discrimination include race, color, national origin, religion, sex, and disability. Discrimination in one or more of those forms often accompanies bullying. Bullies tend to pick on the protected characteristics of the victim. Indeed, Congress enacted its anti-discrimination laws recognizing that the categories and characteristics Congress protected were the ones wrongdoers usually use to harm others. Some of those federal anti-discrimination laws authorize civil money damages actions in certain cases, either on their own or in conjunction with other laws, especially 42 USC Section 1983. Your student may have a claim against the school for bullying harm under one or more of these federal anti-discrimination laws:

• The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act ensures that your disabled student receives a free, appropriate public education;
• Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 ensures that your disabled student has equal access to school services, programs, and benefits;
• Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act requires your student's school to reasonably accommodate your student's educational and other disabilities;
• Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ensures that your public school student receives equal protection against discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin;
• Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ensures that your student does not face discrimination based on race, color, or national origin in any public or private school receiving federal financial assistance and
• Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 ensures that your student does not face sexual assault, sexual harassment, stalking, dating violence, or domestic violence in any public or private school receiving federal financial assistance.

Do not assume that your student has a federal cause of action for monetary damages simply because of bullying in the school. On the contrary, federal law may only authorize such an action under certain circumstances when the wrongdoer uses your student's protected characteristic as a contributing cause for the bullying. You may have to prove that the wrongdoer had an animus for your student because of your student's disability, race, color, national origin, religion, sex, or other protected attribute. You may also have to prove that school officials knew of the bullying, were deliberately indifferent to it, and deliberately failed to correct or prevent it, resulting in further bullying harm. As with state governmental liability laws, the above federal laws may require you to exhaust school administrative remedies, notify the school, and comply with other special rules and procedures. Let our attorneys help evaluate whether your student has a federal civil liability claim against the school for bullying harm.

Compensation for Bullying Victims

Assuming your student has a civil money damages claim against the school for bullying harm, you may wonder how the civil court will determine the amount of your student's compensation. That determination will likely depend on state personal injury laws. While those laws vary from state to state, they generally provide compensation for both economic and non-economic harm. Economic harm would include out-of-pocket losses like medical care you paid for your student's recovery from bullying harm, counseling costs, and replacement of stolen, damaged, or destroyed clothing, jewelry, eyewear, books, backpacks, computers, cellphones, or other personal property. Economic losses may also include lost wages or lost earning capacity if the bullying injuries prevent or will prevent or impair your student from work.

If, as is common for tort claims, state law also provides for your student's recovery of non-economic loss, then your student may also receive compensation for pain, suffering, fear, fright, shock, embarrassment, mortification, mental and emotional distress, and lost enjoyment of life. While these non-economic losses may not have clear measures as to the amount of money the court may award, non-economic losses are often a multiple of the economic losses, meaning that your student may make a substantial recovery in the event of substantial non-economic harm. Let our attorneys help you evaluate your student's claim and recover the compensation your student deserves.

Disciplinary Charges Against Bullying Victims

While your student may be the victim of bullying, your student may at the same time face disciplinary charges for acting out over the bullying wrong. When school officials fail in their duties to protect against bullying, the victim may naturally resort to self-defense. Students who face bullying may naturally resist and even fight back using similar means to those employed by the bully. If your student faces disciplinary charges relating to your student's defense of bullying or acting out after bullying, let our attorneys help you and your student with that defense. Our attorneys can help you document and report the bullying and pursue your student's bullying claim while defending the disciplinary charges.

Premier Nationwide Representation for Bullying Victims

If your grade school student has suffered harm from bullying, retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Education Law Team to help you evaluate and pursue your student's civil money damages claim. We have helped hundreds of students nationwide at all levels, from kindergarten through college, on all issues, including bullying and related harms. Call 888.535.3686 now or chat with us. Get the skilled and experienced help your student needs for a deserving monetary recovery.