Last week’s article focused on the duty of teachers to supervise outside school hours.
Today, I look at the scope of the duty.
In the English Court of Appeal case of DARYL CHRISTOPHER KEARN-PRICE v KENT COUNTY COUNCIL (2002), the court considered generally the duty of care to supervise in the context of the school.
Delivering the judgment of the court, Lord Justice Dyson said: “The general nature of the duty owed by a school towards a child in its charge is not in doubt. It is to take such care for the health and safety of the child as is reasonable in all the circumstances.
I would accept as correct the following statement of the law at paragraph 7 – 230 of Clerk & Lindsell On Torts (18th edition): Schools. A teacher is expected to show such care towards a child under his charge as would be exercised by a reasonably careful parent, taking into account the conditions of school life as distinct from home life, the number of children in the class and the nature of those children.
“This seems to be no more than what would be reasonable in the particular circumstances. A teacher cannot be expected to insure children against injury from ordinary play in the playground or, indeed the classroom. It is the duty of the teacher to supervise children in the playground but supervision before school or as the children leave school may not be required.”
A teacher who fails to exercise reasonable care towards a child is liable in the tort of negligence if harm or injury is suffered by that child as a result of his failure to exercise reasonable care.
A successful action against a teacher will mean that he would have to compensate the child for the injury caused. His employers may also find themselves vicariously liable if that lack of care arose in the course of the performance of his duties as a teacher.
The legal definition of negligence requires that there be:
a) a duty of care owed
b) a breach of that duty
c) damage.
It is clear that a teacher will owe a duty of care to a child under his charge since it is foreseeable that his careless acts or omissions may result in injury to the child. Breach of duty will occur where the teacher fails to exercise reasonable care, that is, where he has fallen short of the care that a careful parent would have taken in the circumstances.
Damage is the harm or injury suffered by the child as a result of the breach of duty. In order for compensation to be awarded by the court there must be proof of some harm or injury to the child.
The cases that have been taken before the court demonstrate that at common law the teacher’s task is not one of continuous supervision.
For example, in the English case of JEFFREY vs LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (1954), Justice Mcnair said: “School authorities, when they are considering the care of children, must strike some balance between the meticulous supervision of children every moment of the time when they are under their care, and the very desirable object of encouraging the sturdy independence of children as they grow up.”
A case in which the question of supervision arose was WARD vs HERTFORDSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL (1970). In that case, a little boy was left at school by his mother a few minutes before the start of school. During that period, he and some other boys raced up and down the playground. As he was running, he stumbled and fell headlong against the boundary wall of the school.
There were no teachers in playground at the time of the accident.
In delivering one of the judgments in the Court of Appeal, Lord Denning asserted that the school held responsibility for the children from the moment school started until they were let out. But even if the incident had occurred during school hours, there was no duty to prevent children playing in the way that the little boy was playing.
The above case demonstrates that the mere fact of an injury to a child is not enough to render a teacher liable even when that child is unsupervised.
The question is whether the nature of the activity which the child was engaged in and the entire circumstances of the particular case required supervision.
Of course, on the issue of liability for incidents occurring before or after school, the Court of Appeal in Daryl Christopher Kearn-Price supra made it clear that Denning’s view was not an accurate statement of the law and school authorities can be held liable for accidents occurring before or after school in appropriate circumstances.
• Cecil McCarthy is a Queen’s Counsel.
