Preventing Unintentional Injuries in Schools: How to Use Data to Build Partnerships and Develop Programs

Legal liability: the consequences of school injury

BACKGROUND

Approximately 10-25% of child and adolescent injuries occur at school. Little is known about school-related injuries to teachers and other adults or about the direct cost of injuries to schools. This study examined the characteristics of cases involving injuries resulting in lawsuits against schools, compared cases in which schools paid awards with those in which schools did not pay awards, and compared student and nonstudent injuries resulting in lawsuits against schools.

METHODS

Descriptions of cases of school liability for personal injury that were tried or settled between July 1996 and May 2002 were purchased from Jury Verdict Research, which maintains a national database of verdicts and settlements. The 455 cases reviewed were coded according to the characteristics of the case, school, award, and injured party.

RESULTS

In two thirds of the cases, schools or school districts paid an award to plaintiffs (mean =$562,915, median =$50,000). In most cases, the injured party was male (57.1%) and younger than 18 years of age (79.9%). Fractures (38.9%) were the most common type of injury. Falls (21.9%) were the most common cause of injury. Among cases of intentional injury, 93.2% involved an injury to a student; among cases of unintentional injury, 74.6% involved injury to a student.

CONCLUSIONS

Preventing school-related injuries is an ethical and legal obligation for schools and school districts. Prevention is also critical because a wide range of injuries are litigated, and such lawsuits often require schools and school districts to pay costly awards to injured parties.

School injuries and preventive policies and programs

BACKGROUND

Injuries are a major source of morbidity and mortality throughout childhood and many occur on school premises. Differences in policies, programs and practises at the level of school boards or individual schools may account for some of the differences in injury rates among schools.

METHODS

We used data from the Montreal Children's Hospital to identify children injured at school. By telephone interview, we identified the school attended and calculated injury rates per school for the study year. A questionnaire to principals identified practises and programs. The two data sets were merged and the data analyzed using cross tabulations and logistic regression.

RESULTS

Nearly one third of the 310 injured children required admission or follow up. Most involved falls, boys, 10-14 year olds, and sports. The variables associated with higher rates of injuries were: school board (English), proximity to hospital, wood gym flooring, gym use during breaks, presence of a playing field, frequent checks of field surface, and the presence of an injury prevention program. Using logistic regression, after controlling for all other variables in the model, only school board and distance to hospital remained significant.

CONCLUSION

These findings provide little support for the notion that school policies influence injury rates. If anything, they suggest that the reverse may be true; i.e., that injury rates help stimulate schools to take certain preventive actions. An alternative explanation is that many of the differences observed among schools simply reflect differences in the extent to which their pupils are exposed to the risk of injury because of, for example, the availability of sports facilities.