If your child was subjected to sexual abuse by one of their teachers or if you experienced such abuse as a child, you have the right to file a civil suit against that abuser and demand financial restitution for the harm their illegal actions caused you and your family. However, individual teachers may not have enough personal assets to make up for the losses you have sustained, and if the abuse happened years ago, the teacher may have moved away or passed away in the intervening time.

With all that in mind, it can be crucial to determine whether school administrators, school districts, and similar governing bodies can be held civilly liable for sexual abuse committed by one of their faculty members. Fortunately, it is usually possible to name schools as co-defendants in claims of this nature, as our sexual abuse attorneys can further explain during a confidential consultation.

What Makes Schools Legally Liable for Sexual Abuse?

When schools are found liable for a teacher’s sexual abuse, their liability usually hinges on their failure to proactively prevent that abuse as opposed to administrators personally engaging in or directly facilitating abuse. More specifically, you may be able to hold a school legally liable for sexual abuse if you can prove that school administrators failed to do one or more of the following in order to reasonably protect you or your child from preventable harm:

• Adequately screen and train faculty members before hiring them
• Properly supervise faculty members when they are around children
• Respond promptly and appropriately to reports of misconduct made against faculty members
• Create safe environments for students free of situations where abusers could take advantage of those students

Our team can help investigate the circumstances surrounding the abuse you or your child experienced and determine who bears legal liability for it.

Public Versus Private School Liability

All schools that receive federal funding of any kind are subject to Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments, which—among other things—requires schools to proactively prevent, investigate, and report sexual misconduct on campus. Often, when a school negligently fails to protect students from sexual abuse, they are liable specifically for failing to live up to its obligations under Title IX.

In other situations, specific state-level laws may impose specific requirements on schools concerning addressing and preventing sexual misconduct by teachers targeting students. There may also be different rules for civil claims against private schools, especially those operated under the purview of religious institutions like the Catholic Church.

Discuss Legal Options with an Attorney from Phillips Law Group

You have help available from compassionate legal counsel with constructing, filing, and effectively pursuing a lawsuit over a teacher’s sexual abuse, which their school failed to sufficiently prevent or address. Call Phillips Law Group for more information.