Joseph Svinth
1st June 2002, 03:00
This link, http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/iclp/safety.htm , sends you to an article about legal liability in schools, grades K-12. There is material here that sounds relevant to people who run dojo. To wit:
QUOTE
b. The Dailey Case: Negligence in Failing to Provide Adequate Supervision
On a public high school campus during lunchtime, sixteen-year-old Michael Dailey and one of his friends began a slap-boxing match. A crowd soon gathered around and urged the two boys on. All the evidence indicated, however, that this slap-boxing was simply good-natured horseplay, nothing more than an apparently harmless activity which high school boys might be likely to engage in after finishing lunch.
Suddenly, after being slapped, Michael fell backwards, fracturing his skull on the asphalt paving. He died that night.
The Dailey family sued the school district, seeking to establish that defendant's negligence in failing to provide adequate supervision was the cause of Michael's death. The court found that the school had a lunchtime supervision plan, but that the coach who was supposed to supervise the area where the slap-boxing had taken place was in his office at the time, talking on the phone.
"From this evidence," the court declared, "a jury could reasonably conclude that those employees of the defendant school district who were charged with the responsibility of providing supervision failed to exercise due care in the performance of this duty and their negligence was the proximate cause of the tragedy which took Michael's life."
END QUOTE
I've heard of schools where the chief instructor leaves juveniles in charge while said instructor leaves the room for extended periods. If this is you, it sounds as if you're living dangerously.
QUOTE
b. The Dailey Case: Negligence in Failing to Provide Adequate Supervision
On a public high school campus during lunchtime, sixteen-year-old Michael Dailey and one of his friends began a slap-boxing match. A crowd soon gathered around and urged the two boys on. All the evidence indicated, however, that this slap-boxing was simply good-natured horseplay, nothing more than an apparently harmless activity which high school boys might be likely to engage in after finishing lunch.
Suddenly, after being slapped, Michael fell backwards, fracturing his skull on the asphalt paving. He died that night.
The Dailey family sued the school district, seeking to establish that defendant's negligence in failing to provide adequate supervision was the cause of Michael's death. The court found that the school had a lunchtime supervision plan, but that the coach who was supposed to supervise the area where the slap-boxing had taken place was in his office at the time, talking on the phone.
"From this evidence," the court declared, "a jury could reasonably conclude that those employees of the defendant school district who were charged with the responsibility of providing supervision failed to exercise due care in the performance of this duty and their negligence was the proximate cause of the tragedy which took Michael's life."
END QUOTE
I've heard of schools where the chief instructor leaves juveniles in charge while said instructor leaves the room for extended periods. If this is you, it sounds as if you're living dangerously.