At issue in this case is the question of what responsibility a teacher has to a student in the context of a field trip. There could be potential liability for the teacher, and by extension, for the school, if the teacher was negligent in his behavior toward the students. According to the law of negligence, a teacher is negligent if he owes a duty of care to the student, breaches that duty of care, is the proximate cause of the injury to the student, and actual injury occurs to the student. In this particular case, the teacher owes the student at least some duty. There is both a duty of reasonable supervision and instruction for teachers to their students, according to the courts. The term “reasonable,” of course, is where this case will turn.

The teacher will argue that he was reasonable because he gave warnings to the students and because he was in position to respond to any students. The student’s parents will argue that allowing students to roam a beach is dangerous. The issue is whether the harm to the student was foreseeable. It is certainly foreseeable that a student could have been injured as a result of this accident, as these harms are well-known on beaches. Because the teacher knew of this danger, did not warn specifically of it, and failed to intervene to stop the student, the teacher might be found to be negligent in this instance.

In addition, there is a question of what duty was owned to the student after the teacher discovered the injury. When the teacher discovered the injury, he gave the student a warning and instructions. The student presumably took those instructions home to her parents, who then did not take action. This brings about perhaps the most important element of analysis. It is clear that the fourth element of negligence – the existence of an actual injury – occurred with the student. The big question has to do with the third element of negligence. That question is, “Was the teacher’s action or inaction the proximate cause of the injury to the student?” The teacher’s negligence appears to be the cause of the original injury, where a spine lodged in the hand of the student.

However, the greater harm, and the harm being sued on by the family, is the loss of the finger. In this case, there are intervening and superseding causes that would absolve the teacher of liability. The damage that ultimately led to the finger being removed did not happen until many days after the initial injury, and even some period of time after the teacher alerted the student to what needed to be done. The teacher will be able to raise the defense that the family’s action was a superseding cause. This means that it was the unwillingness to seek treatment for the finger before it got infected that was superseding negligence. This should discharge the liability of the teacher, if liability existed in the first place.

At issue is whether the school is liable for the injuries to the child. The rule of law states that the school stands in the place of the parent – in loco parentis – when the parent is not present. The school owes a duty of reasonable care in its hiring practices, and in putting into place policies that keep students safe. In this case, the student and her parents signed a waiver discharging the school from some forms of liability. Without seeing that waiver, it is hard to know whether this would be a good defense for the school. However, it is apparent that the school went through normal procedures for keeping students safe, and as long as the school has good due diligence processes in place, then it should not have its own liability. It may, however, face a lawsuit because of the actions of the teacher. The same analysis mentioned above would apply to the school on the point of causation, and it appears that the chain of causation was broken when the family decided not to seek medical attention.