school premise? Ray Knight was suspended from his middle school, and on the first day of
suspension, he went to a friend's house where he was accidentally shot. The school did send a
notification of the suspension with the student but did not have a required telephone notification.
The student threw away the written notification to the parents were not aware of the suspension.
The case of Jerkins v Board of Education of Pleasantville can help the case of the parents
in holding the school accountable. In the case of jerkins v Pleasantville, a young boy was
involved in an accident on his way home. The boy was dismissed early because the school had
an early-dismissal day. The parents were unaware of the dismissal time, so there was no adult
supervision to walk him home. The parents sued the school district on the grounds of "school
district and principal breached their duty of reasonable supervision with respect to [the
students]dismissal from school. In both cases, the parents are unaware of the schools reasoning
as to why their children are not at the school like they should be. In both cases, the parents were
not correctly notified like they should have been resulting in the injury of both students. In the
case of Ray Knight, the school may be held responsible because the suspension procedures were
not followed.
Hoyem v Manhattan Beach City School District is another case that can help the parents
case. This case was to determine a school's negligent supervision after their student was injured
during school hours. The student snuck out of school and on his way to an undisclosed location
he was involved in a motorcycle accident. The family of Michael Hoyem sued the school district
for negligent supervision. During the trial, it was found that "a school district may be held liable
for a student's injuries which are proximately caused by the district's failure to exercise
reasonable care under the circumstances." We Can relate this to the case of Mr. Knight because
there was no form of communication between the parent and the school were the supervision of
the student was passed from one source to the other. Since the parents did not know about the
The case of Kerwin v County of San Mateo can help the schools side of the argument.
This case states that the school district is only responsible for a student outside of the school, and
is only responsible if it involves school transportation. For example, after school is released, Tim
uses the school district's school bus to get home. On their route home, Tim is injured. The school
would be responsible because the Tim was injured outside of school hours while using the school
district's transportation. However, in the case of Ray Knight, he was not using the school
district's transportation. Therefore the school is not responsible for what happens to him outside
of school.
Another case that can be used as evidence to show that Ray's parents do not have
defensible grounds to pursue liability charges would be Glaser v Emporia Unified School
District. In this case, a student was injured when he was hit by a car on the public street in front
of the school. Before the incident, the student was in the school building, but for some reason, he
did step out onto the street where he was injured. The school district noted that they"[do] not
exercise supervision before school until student [are] in the building." Due to the circumstances
that the incident occurred outside of the school property and in a public street, the school district
grounds to pursue liability charges against the school. The school did not follow the suspension
procedures as they should have. Their only notice was a written notification which was thrown
away by the student. With the help of the case of Jerkins v Anderson, we can see that the school
did not correctly notify the parents. The school was still responsible for the student because no
Kerwin v. County of San Mateo, 18106. First Dist., Div. One. (1959)
21 P. 3d 573 (2001)