Schools Liabilities | Preszler Law Toronto Injury Lawyer

In this informative video, John Filpo from Preszler Injury Lawyers discusses the responsibilities schools have to ensure the safety of their premises for children. He emphasizes that schools must take reasonable steps to maintain a safe environment, including regular inspections and documentation of maintenance activities. Filpo highlights the importance of identifying actual hazards, such as broken glass in a sandbox or icy patches in winter, to establish liability in personal injury cases. He also addresses the potential for liability to extend to teachers or school staff if they fail to supervise or inspect the area adequately. For more information, viewers can contact Preszler Injury Lawyers at 1-800-JUSTICE.

Thank you, Liam. Schoolyards across the Greater Toronto Area are once again full of kids running and playing. But what happens if your child hurts themselves? Who's liable? We turn to John Filpo from Preszler Injury Lawyers to answer that.

Welcome back. Good morning! It's good to see you. So, yeah, school is back in session. Let's talk about what standard of care needs to be met out on the schoolyard or within the school.

This is a great subject because we're back to school. Schools have a responsibility, just like any sort of private property, to make sure that the premises are safe. They have to take all reasonable steps in the circumstances to ensure that the property is safe for these children.

Now, back to school, we sometimes see cases where there are issues. For example, we had one case where there was glass in a sandbox at the beginning of the school year. Some older kids, maybe teenagers, had been partying in the park, and a bottle had broken in the sandbox. When the kids went back to school, one of these children was injured because the school hadn't inspected the sandbox at the beginning of the school year to make sure that it was safe. One of these kids got cut very badly from the glass.

In those circumstances, you have to look at what the school has done to make sure that the premises are safe. Is there a system of maintenance in place? Do they have custodians or janitors going around inspecting the property? Have they documented these inspections? That's a very important step in the process for the school. If they're going to prove that they've been taking care of the property, they actually have to keep a record of what inspections have been done.

At what point is it just sort of kids being kids, like roughhousing in the halls or in the gym, or that kind of thing?

That's a good question. There has to be an actual hazard on the property. For example, there needs to be a pothole in the playground that maybe wasn't observed or wasn't inspected by the school. There needs to be something on the premises that is unsafe in order to bring a lawsuit against the school.

You would never be bringing it personally against a teacher or anything, would you?

Well, it depends on the circumstances. Like all personal injury cases, you have to look at all of the facts. If it's a situation where perhaps the school teacher or the principal, or whoever was there, had a responsibility to supervise the children or had some responsibility to inspect the schoolyard or wherever the injury occurred, then yes, you might want to consider bringing a lawsuit against the teacher as well as the school.

Is liability seasonal as well? Does it change seasonally?

Absolutely. In the wintertime, just like a private premises, the school has to make sure that the schoolyard is safe. There can't be giant patches of ice that kids are going to be running across and falling down and cracking their heads open. Again, they need to take reasonable steps in the circumstances to make sure the property is safe.

Excellent. Thank you so much, John Filpo from Preszler Injury Lawyers. It's always good to see you.

It was good to see you too. Thank you.