Commentary About Negligent Supervision and Abuse
Negligent supervision is a term you may not have heard very often before the Penn State scandal. The University is now facing civil lawsuits for failure to report Jerry Sandusky’s sexual crimes. These lawsuits include claims of negligent supervision. The core complaint is that the University failed to protect children from being sexually assaulted by one-time assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky.
Negligent supervision describes the breach of a duty to do something you should know you are supposed to. This applies in the context of supervision of employees, children or adults. A person or entity has the responsibility to hire capable and trustworthy people especially if they are in charge of the well-being of others.
For example, a hospital employs people to carry out a wide range of daily functions in order to care for its patients. If an employee of the hospital does something outside of their job description or standard practice that amounts to assaulting a patient or even another employee, the hospital will have to answer for that. If the employee made verbal threats and the person in charge knew about it then the employer had the duty to act on that knowledge. An employer is expected to have more information about the people it hires and is, therefore, more likely to be able to prevent an injury or accident to a third party.
Because the consequences of negligent supervision are serious, either emotionally or physically, the person charged with the negligence may have to pay large sums of money as damages to an injured person. Sometimes, even if the person who commits the assault is not found negligent, the employer who hires them can be. Large companies that have a lot of employees are especially careful about hiring procedures because they do not want to expose themselves to this liability.
The good news is, if you are injured, you can possibly recover for any medical expenses or lost wages from a larger entity that is more likely to be able to cover those expenses. The bad news is; you don’t have to be a large company to be accused of negligent supervision.
In Arkansas, parents can be sued because of the injuries cause by their children. In Bieker v. Owens, 350 S.W. 2d 522 (1961), the court said:
“Where the parent (1) has the opportunity and ability to control a minor, and (2) has knowledge of the tendency or proclivity of the minor to commit acts which could normally be expected to cause injuries to others, and (3) after having such opportunity, ability and knowledge has failed to exercise reasonable means of controlling the minor or appreciably reduce the likelihood of injury to others because of the minor’s acts, the parent should be made to respond to those who have been injured by such acts of the minor.”
Even if you are a careful driver who has never had an accident, you could be on the line for injuries your minor child causes in an automobile accident. In the case above, the parents knew the child was driving in violation of state law and that he had prior automobile accidents and traffic citations. Even though the case against the son had been settled and the court could not retry him for his negligence which caused the injury, the actions of his parents created a separate cause of action.
If you or someone you love have suffered injuries from abuse at a school, church, nursing home facility, hospital, or daycare, call my law office today. We are a team of experienced attorneys who can help you decide if you have a legal claim that entitles you to compensation for your pain and suffering.