Running head: ARTIFACT #5 1

Artifact #5

Christian Prada

College of Southern Nevada

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Abstract

In this paper, we will be looking at a case involving tort and liability law. A middle school

student named Ray Knight is suspended for 3 days for unexcused absences. The school fails to

notify his parents the proper way and just send a note home with the student, which he proceeds

to throw away. Ray is later shot at a friend’s house during the first day of his suspension. His

parents are now suing the school district. This paper will present two cases to support each

party. Finally, I will decide how I believe a court would rule in this particular case.
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Artifact #5

The next case we will be analyzing is one having to do with tort and liability law. This

case features a middle school student named Ray Knight who had been suspended for three days

due to unexcused absences. The school district had procedures put in place for when a student

was suspended. The school was required to call parents and notify them by telephone as well as

mail a letter home with notification of the suspension. In this case, the school did neither. They

simply sent a letter home with Ray, which he quickly discarded and threw away. Thus, his

parents were never made aware of the suspension. On Ray’s first day of suspension, he was

visiting a friend’s house and was accidentally shot. Ray’s parents are consequently pursuing

liability damages. We will now take a look at this case from both sides.

The first case that Ray’s parents would use to support their argument would be

Warrington v. Tempe Elementary School District No. 3. In this case, a seven year old student

named Andrew Warrington was dropped off at a bus stop after school. He felt threatened by

another student and took off running into the street and was struck by a car. Andrew suffered

serious brain and spinal cord injuries as a result. Andrew’s parents sued the school district for

negligence as they claimed that the bus stop had been placed in a dangerous location by a street

with a 45 mph speed limit. They believed this caused a foreseeable risk to the safety of the

students. The court decided that the blame was to be split with 45% going to the Andrew, 40% to

his parents, and 15% to the district. The jury decided that Andrew had suffered 6 million dollars

in damages and so he was awarded 15% of that number which came to $900,000 (Warrington v.

Tempe Elementary School District No. 3, 1996). Ray’s parents would use this case to argue that

not having received notice of the suspension put their son in foreseeable risk and that the school
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should have to pay at least a percentage of the total amount deemed to have been suffered in

damages.

The second case Ray’s parents would use would be Goss v. Lopez. In this case, several

students were suspended from school for 10 days without having been given a hearing. The

Supreme Court decided that students were entitled to notice as well as a hearing under the due

process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (Goss v. Lopez, 1975). Ray’s parents would argue

that their son never received a hearing and that they were never given notice of the suspension.

Thus, they argue that the school infringed upon his Fourteenth Amendment right to due process.

The school district would begin their argument by citing the case of Pistolese v. William

Floyd Union Free District. In this case, a student was assaulted after school by other kids as he

chose to walk home as opposed to riding the school bus. The incident occurred 30 minutes after

he had left the school grounds. The court decided that the incident occurred when the student

was no longer in the school’s custody or “under its control” and that it was therefore “outside of

the orbit of its authority” (Pistolese v. William Floyd Union Free District, 2010). The school

district in Ray’s case would argue that since Ray was suspended, he was also “outside the obit of

its authority.”

The second case that the school district would use to support their argument would be

Pratt v. Robinson. In this case, a seven year old student was hit by a truck when she was on her

way home from school. Her parents sued the driver but were only able to get $10,000 so they

then sued the school district. The court sided with the school district and stated that “the duty

owed by a school to its students, however, stems from the fact of its physical custody over them”

(Pratt v. Robinson, 1976). The school district would argue that since Ray was suspended, they
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no longer had physical custody over him and thus they shouldn’t be held responsible for his

shooting.

This is a tricky case involving tort and liability law. There are four requirements to be

found liable. There must be an injury, a duty, a breach of duty, and proximate cause. The injury

was the gunshot wound. The duty was to notify the parents of the suspension. The breach of

duty was the fact that the school didn’t notify the parents in the manner required. These 3 are

factual and neither side would dispute them. The issue comes with proximate cause. I believe

that the court would side with the school district because the inadequate notice of suspension was

not close enough to the chain of events that caused the shooting. It was not foreseeable and was

not the proximate cause of the injury.

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References

Goss v. Lopez, 419 U.S. 565 (1975)

Pistolese v. William Floyd Union Free District, 69 A.D. 3d 825 (2010)

Pratt v. Robinson, 39 N.Y. 2d 554 (1976)

Warrington v. Tempe Elementary School District No. 3, 928 P.2d 673 (1996)