Visitor Question

Can you sue a private school for costs related to emotional distress?

Submitted By: Kerrie (Phoenix, AZ)

Our first grade child attends a private school in Arizona since last fall. We noticed over the months that she was having some resistance towards attending school. In December she had several episodes of what appeared to be severe abdominal pain with screaming.

She has been to the ER twice, to her pediatrician’s office twice, had lab work done, extensive imaging and a visit to a GI doctor with a negative workup.

We have come to realize that she is suffering extreme anxiety due to a militant music teacher who uses a “naughty” infraction book to hand out to kids who refuse to sing and dance or “do not pay attention”.

We are now forced to remove her from this school and find another school in the middle of the year. She has nightmares every night and we now have to sleep with her. She is losing weight, no longer eating meals, appears depressed and will likely need a psychiatrist.

We have lost thousands of dollars in medical bills and loss of work, and we fear she has been psychologically damaged for life due to the militant teacher. The school administration was aware of this teacher’s methods for controlling his classroom.

We at the very least want to sue them to pay back the private tuition for the year, the cost of medical bills, our loss of income, and be reimbursed for the registration fees we paid last month for the upcoming school year. Is this possible?

Disclaimer: Our response is not formal legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship. It is generic legal information based on the very limited information provided. Do not rely upon the information in our response, or anywhere else on this site, when deciding the proper course of a legal matter. Always get a personalized case review from a local attorney.

Answer

Dear Kerrie,

You can certainly sue the school. Whether you will be successful will depend on several factors…

You will first have to establish the teacher’s militancy was the direct and proximate cause of your daughter’s psychiatric problems. This will require one or more psychiatrists to verify the causal relationship.

Another challenge will be comparing your daughter’s problems to other children who have been taught by the same teacher. If the teacher has been teaching for any length of time and no other students have suffered the same psychiatric problems it will be all the more difficult to isolate and connect your daughter’s problems to the teacher.

If you do sue the school and allege the teacher’s influence on your child was the cause of your daughter’s problems, it is likely your parenting skills will become the focus of the school’s defense. This will be an unfortunate but realistic result of alleging someone else caused your daughter’s psychiatric problems. It is likely you and your husband will be placed under a microscope.

You might want to visit with an attorney who can evaluate your case in more detail.

Learn more here: Who's Liable if a Child Gets Hurt at School?

The above is general information. Laws change frequently, and across jurisdictions. You should get a personalized case evaluation from a licensed attorney.

Find a local attorney to give you a free case review here, or call 888-972-0892.

We wish you the best with your claim,

Published:

One comment on “Can you sue a private school for costs related to emotional distress?

  1. Bassi says:

    I was kicked out of an all-girls Jewish Hasidic school because the principal got wind of a rumor going around about me that I was spotted near a lake talking to a Black man. It is strictly forbidden for girls to fraternize with boys or men in my religion, and especially ones outside our religion, and especially Black men (because most Hasidic people are racist, to be frank). After I was kicked out of my school, I was shunned by my community and my parents. At 14-years-old, my parents shipped me off to a behavioral modification camp called Tranquility Bay in Jamaica where they left me until I turned 18. The camp has since been shut down for human rights violations. My parents never wrote me one letter or visited me in 4 years. I was a happy kid. I never did any of those things they accused me of, even though there was nothing wrong with doing them. But I never was at the lake, I wasn’t even allowed to go there, my mom told me only losers hang out at the lake so I never went there. Whoever they saw at the lake was a different girl. But because my principal, who has so much power in our community, chose to believe in a high school rumor, I was completely shunned. When I left Tranquility Bay at 18-years-old, I was a broken shell of the girl I once was. I had spent almost 8 months at a time in solitary isolation at Tranquility Bay, multiple times, throughout my 4 year stay. I needed help but no one cared. I was so angry. I had nowhere to go. I met a guy who let me stay with him. He introduced me to drugs and then he began pimping me out, taking all the money I earned. He knew I was vulnerable because I had no ties to anyone, no family ties, no friends, no one. My friends, my BEST friends had shunned me! I spent 5 years being trafficked. I want to sue the principal. It’s been 16 years and I think about her everyday.

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