Tampa Personal Injury Attorney Discusses Child Injuries at School
When your child is at school or let’s say a passenger on the school bus, they are basically the responsibility of the school district. In Florida, school districts as well as municipalities have what they call sovereign immunity, and sovereign immunity has been waived up to a certain limit in Florida. For example, if there is an automobile accident and the school district is deemed to be at fault, the limits that an individual can recover is $200,000 per person, $300,000 per accident. If the injuries are greater or worth more, the value of those injuries is worth more than that, then there is a process that an injured person can file what’s called a claims bill with the legislature up in Tallahassee.
The same rules apply for injuries while your son or daughter is at school or on the school bus, and that is in order to be successful in prosecuting such a claim, we need to prove there was fault on the part of the school district, or an agent, an employee or a servant of the school district. In these types of accidents, we need to do a good investigation. We need to find out the names of individuals that were on the bus or in the area of the injury, if possible take pictures. A lot of school children now have cellphones, and again, they should be taught to take photographs, get names. If you have to, take pictures of people so that you can later say I don’t know this person’s name, but here’s a photograph of them. Of course, get immediate medical attention, and see an attorney so that various forms can be filled out. There’s a notice requirement that has to be filed with the municipality under Florida statute as a prerequisite to filing a claim against the municipality or the school district.
Get Our FREE Injury Guide and Videos- When your child is at school they are the responsibility of that school
- School district have sovereign immunity, which means they can only be sued between $200,000-300,000 depending on the incident
