Opinion ID: 1649667
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Duty of the School Board

Text: Given this legal framework, our first task under the duty-risk analysis in this case is to determine the duty, if any, which the defendant School Board owed to the plaintiffs. Whether under La. Civ. Code art. 2315 or La. Civ.Code art. 2320, it is well-settled that the duty imposed on a school board with regard to children in its care is one of reasonable supervision. Wallmuth v. Rapides Parish School Bd., 01-1779, 01-1780, p. 8 (La.4/3/02), 813 So.2d 341, 346. In Wallmuth, we endorsed the applicable standard of liability as follows: A school board, through its agents and teachers, owes a duty of reasonable supervision over students. The supervision required is reasonable, competent supervision appropriate to the age of the children and the attendant circumstances. This duty does not make the school board the insurer of the safety of the children. Constant supervision of all students is not possible nor required for educators to discharge their duty to provide adequate supervision. Before liability can be imposed upon a school board for failure to adequately supervise the safety of students, there must be proof of negligence in providing supervision and also proof of a causal connection between the lack of supervision and the accident.... Furthermore, before a school board can be found to have breached the duty to adequately supervise the safety of students, the risk of unreasonable injury must be foreseeable, constructively or actually known, and preventable if a requisite degree of supervision had been exercised. Id., p. 8, 813 So.2d at 346 (citations omitted). Although the nature and scope of a school board's duty over students in its custody is long-established, the plurality opinion below found that La.Rev.Stat. 17:158(A)(1) provided for a heightened duty to a student who lives more than a mile from the school. [4] The plaintiffs similarly argue in this court that the school was legally obligated to provide C.C. a ride home under the statute, and that its policy of refusing to allow Behavior Clinic students to ride the after hours bus violated this obligation. La.Rev.Stat. 17:158(A)(1) provides: Except as provided by Subsection H of this Section and in accordance with the requirements of Subsection F of this Section, each parish and city school board shall provide free transportation for any student attending a school of suitable grade approved by the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education within the jurisdictional boundaries of the parish or school board if the student resides more than one mile from such school. We do not read this statute as expanding the scope of a school board's duty of reasonable supervision owed to students within its care. Although the statute mandates free transportation be provided to students who live more than one mile from school, to adopt a holding as proposed by the plaintiffs and two judges below is to make a school board responsible for any and all injuries sustained by any student, regardless of time, distance, and intervening factors, when those injuries would not have been suffered if the student had just been provided a free ride home. [5] As one concurring judge noted below, this is not the law in Louisiana. S.J., 16 So.3d at 626 (Gremillion, J., concurring). As we explained in Wallmuth, p. 8, 813 So.2d at 346, the school board is not the insurer of the safety of the children, and constant supervision of all students is neither possible nor required. The statute provides for a penalty for violation of the requirement of free transportation rather than for an action in tort. See La.Rev.Stat. 17:158(C). We have held that the violation of a statute gives rise to civil liability only when the prohibition in the statute is designed to protect from the harm or damage which ensues from its violation. Laird v. Travelers Ins. Co., 263 La. 199, 267 So.2d 714, 717 (1972). La.Rev.Stat. 17:158 is an accommodation statute, not a safety statute, as the dissenting judge pointed out below. We agree the statute is not designed to prevent the injury or assault of students when they leave the school; rather, it is designed only to provide free transportation for schoolchildren who live more than a mile away from the school. Louisiana has a long-standing recognition of the right of elementary and secondary students and their parents to a free education and that included within that concept is the right to free transportation to and from school. Moreau v. Avoyelles Parish School Bd., 04-1613, p. 4 (La.App. 3 Cir. 3/9/05), 897 So.2d 875, 880, writs denied, 05-910 (La.6/17/05), 904 So.2d 704 and 05-997 (La.6/17/05), 904 So.2d 705. The general rule has been that allowing a student to leave the campus during regular school hours in violation of the school's established policy is a violation of the duty of reasonable supervision. Peters v. Allen Parish School Bd., 08-323 (La. App. 3 Cir. 11/5/08), 996 So.2d 1230, D.C. v. St. Landry Parish School Bd ., 00-1304 p. 6, 802 So.2d at 23. For example, some courts have held that the duty of reasonable supervision encompasses preventing a six-year-old from leaving the school grounds unattended at the end of the school day. See Sutton v. Duplessis, 584 So.2d 362 (La.App. 4th Cir.1991); Gary on Behalf of Gary v. Meche, 626 So.2d 901 (La.App. 3rd Cir.1993). However, the extent of the duty of reasonable supervision depends on the age of the student. In Jackson v. Colvin, the court held that a school board is not required to ensure that a nine-year-old student who is walking home after an extracurricular activity does not leave the school grounds alone. Jackson v. Colvin, 98-182 (La.App. 3 Cir. 12/23/98), 732 So.2d 530, writ denied, 99-228 (La.3/19/99), 740 So.2d 117. In Domingue v. Lafayette Parish School Bd ., the court held the school board did not breach its duty of reasonable supervision to an eleven-year-old sixth grade student, who had been instructed by his mother to ride the bus home from school, but who instead decided to walk home from school and was struck by a vehicle. Domingue v. Lafayette Parish School Bd., 03-895 (La. App. 3 Cir. 6/16/04), 879 So.2d 288, writ denied, 04-1803 (La.10/29/04), 885 So.2d 588. Therefore, the duty we must analyze in this matter is whether the School Board provided reasonable supervision to C.C. in accordance with her age and the accompanying circumstances.