When we send our children to school, we are promised that the school will provide a safe space where society’s most vulnerable and precious members can grow and learn. When your child is victimized due to a teacher’s misconduct, that can shatter the image of a school is a place you can entrust your children with. Teacher misconduct is a serious issue, and with more and more cases making news headlines all the time, it is clearly also a prominent one. Victims of teacher misconduct have legal options even after the criminal trial is over. Families of children who were victimized in the Bay Area can pursue justice by speaking to a teacher misconduct lawyer in Brentwood about a civil case.
Although most schools do work hard to provide a good environment for the students, there are exceptions—and those exceptions can pave the way for crimes like teacher misconduct to take place on campus. For example, if a faculty member knows or even suspects that teacher misconduct is happening and fails to report it to the appropriate authorities, this can be seen as an act of negligence on the school’s part. Similarly, if the teacher was previously convicted of a similar crime and the school failed to run a thorough background check—or did, but failed to take that into consideration when hiring—they can be held liable for the act of misconduct that affected your child.
Civil courts differ from criminal courts in that they are not concerned with a perpetrator’s guilt or innocence. Instead, with civil lawsuits, the court seeks to establish whether or not third-party negligence was partially responsible for the crime that took place. If the actions or inactions of a third party are determined to have given rise to the crime perpetrated against your child, that third party—in this case, the school—can be forced to pay restitution to you for failing in their duty to protect your child. Criminal courts deal with the criminals themselves, while civil courts deal with the parties who made it possible for the criminal to commit their crimes.
If your child was victimized because of teacher misconduct, you may believe not only the teacher but the school, failed you and your family. If the school’s negligence enabled your child’s teacher to commit a crime, the school can be held liable for their failure in a civil courtroom. Contact a teacher misconduct lawyer in Brentwood at Okabe and Haushalter for a cost-free case evaluation. We can represent your family in the civil courtroom and make sure the party responsible for allowing your child to be victimized answers for their negligence. Your family may be entitled to receive compensation as a result of a civil suit, to call today to find out more about your options in the civil court.
