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School Bus Accidents - Claims for Personal Injuries Due to the Operation and Maintenance of School Buses

If a school provides transportation for students, it has a duty to exercise reasonable care in the handling of this duty. However, a school's duty of care stems from the fact that it has physical custody of the student. Therefore, a school's control over its students regarding transportation only extends from the time a school bus picks the students up at the bus stop until they reach the school door. If a student is injured on the way to the bus stop or after leaving one, the injury occurred outside the parameters of the school's duty of care, and generally no liability will attach.

However, there are exceptions in which the school district can still be held liable. For example, a school district can be liable for a bus driver's failure to activate flashing red lights on bus, as required by law, if this negligence caused injury to a student. A considerable number of cases have permitted recovery against school entities, school bus owners, and school bus drivers for injuries or death suffered by schoolchildren as a result of the bus driver's negligence. These youngsters were either struck by passing motor vehicles while attempting to board or after alighting from a school bus. In many of these cases, liability has been predicated on the bus driver's violation of a specific statutory duty regarding procedures for boarding and discharging children. Bus drivers are under a duty to obey laws governing the operation of a school bus, and a failure to activate the bus' flashing lights or stop sign while a student is boarding or disembarking is negligent. Depending on the applicable law, a driver may also have a duty to verify that traffic has stopped before permitting a child to exit or to monitor a child's safe crossing of a street. The failure to do so may also constitute negligence.

A higher duty of care is required towards children rather than adolescents and adults. This applies particularly to schoolchildren, who have a special status in the eyes of the law and deserve extraordinary protection. Courts have recognized the unpredictability of children when they are required to cross the street on their way home after getting off the bus. Thus, a safe place for an adult to depart from a bus may not be a safe place for a child. Moreover, a place of safety for an 18-year-old high school senior of normal intelligence might be a place of peril for an inexperienced 6-year-old first grader. What constitutes a place of safety depends upon the age, experience, and ability of the passenger. The care which a school bus driver must exercise towards a school bus passenger is proportionate to the degree of danger inherent in the passenger's youth and inexperience.

School bus drivers have also been found to be negligent, even apart from the effect of any statute, for permitting children to get off the bus or cross a highway without warning of approaching traffic.

In proper circumstances, liability may be imposed on a school bus driver for discharging the injured pupil in a dangerous place when a better location was available. If you feel you have suffered injuries during a school bus accident, fill out our free case evaluation form.

Injuries Caused At or Near School Bus Stops

A school board can also be liable for negligence regarding the maintenance of a school bus stop if it is not kept up properly. The designation of a school bus stop is considered a planning level function for which no liability can attach under the doctrine of sovereign immunity. Therefore, allegations that a school board negligently chose the site for a bus stop will not support a viable tort action. However, the courts have upheld that a duty does exist on the part of school boards to give warning of known dangerous conditions created by the public entity which are not readily apparent and may constitute a trap for the unwary. Breach of this duty may impose liability on a school board in a negligence suit.

A school entity furnishing the transportation for its students ordinarily is under the duty to select bus routes and pickup/discharge points that do not needlessly expose the pupils to any serious hazards exceeding those which are congenital to typical school bus operation.

Some cases involving primary negligence of the school bus owner or school entity responsible for furnishing school bus transportation are contingent upon the suitability of the place designated for loading or unloading, and liability may be imposed where the school bus stop was unsafe. If your child has been injured at a bus stop, contact a school bus accident attorney today.

School Bus Accident Liability

Sovereign Immunity
Recovery for personal injuries and other damages caused by the negligent operation of a school bus or maintenance of school bus stops is limited to $100,000 based upon the limited immunity granted to public entities by the legislature and courts.
Negligent operation of a school bus or negligent maintenance of school bus stop
Generally, damages that may be obtained in lawsuits for injuries to a student include past and future medical expenses, past and future lost wages or lost earning capacity, and pain and suffering. Punitive damages can be available under rare circumstances.

The parents are generally not entitled to recover for mental distress and anxiety resulting from an injury to their child. However, they may have a right to compensation for this element of damages if the injury was willful or malicious, or, in some jurisdictions, if the parents witnessed the injury as it occurred.

Examples of Negligent School Transportation

Evidence of the following facts and circumstances warrants that a school bus driver or the driver's employer may have failed to exercise reasonable care in operating or supervising a school bus, resulting in injury to a child who was struck by a passing motorist while walking to or from the school bus.

A school bus driver may be found negligent if he or she fails to:

Provide passengers with reasonably safe place to board or alight. Examples of this include:
- Selection of unsafe bus stops
- Pickup/discharge points needlessly exposing pupils to serious safety hazards exceeding those expected with typical school bus operations
- Failure to warn of or take other protective measures against known dangers associated with bus stops
- Failure of driver to stop in safest possible place or manner at designated bus stop
- Failure of driver to stop at usual place
Ensure that passengers reach position of safety after alighting
Look in rear view mirror to determine that all traffic has stopped
Remain stopped with lights flashing (or other device for stopping traffic in operation) for sufficient length of time to allow alighting pupils to cross highway
Warn injured plaintiff of impending peril
Properly maintain school bus
Operate stop sign or flashing red lights while loading and unloading passengers
Instruct passengers to cross in front of bus while bus remains stopped with lights flashing
Monitor or conduct safe passage across road

Other examples of negligent behavior on the part of a school bus driver or school bus company include:

Failure of system operator to educate drivers about safe transportation of school students
Failure to provide instruction and education to students riding buses
Failure of bus to be furnished with required safety equipment. Examples of this could include:
- Bus not painted national school bus glossy yellow
- Pickup/discharge points needlessly exposing pupils to serious safety issues
- Absence of sign on bus identifying it as school bus
- Bus not equipped with properly operating stop signal arm, prewarning flashing amber signals, or flashing red signals
Opening door to receive or discharge passengers before approaching vehicles had stopped
Stopping on highly traveled portion of roadway
Stopping at location of low visibility to approaching motorists
Opening door of bus before all vehicles approaching bus had stopped
Signaling motorists to proceed before ascertaining that injured plaintiff had reached place of safety

The school bus accident lawyers at Morgan & Morgan litigate numerous lawsuits to trial involving School Bus Accidents and other personal injury cases annually nationwide. We are extremely proud of the results that we have obtained and look forward to sharing them with you.