Illinois Supreme Court Grants Immunity to School District
In Haase v. Kankakee School District, the Illinois Supreme Court considered whether a school district and its employees were entitled to immunity for a student injury under the Local Governmental and Governmental Employees Tort Immunity Act (“Tort Immunity Act”).
A parent sued a school district on behalf of his son who was injured during gym class. According to the complaint, the gym teacher walked the students through warmup activities and provided basketball and soccer balls to the students. The gym teacher then went to sit in the corner of the gym and began using his laptop. The complaint alleges that the gym teacher was aware of a child in the class who had been disciplined in the past for fighting and getting aggressive with other students. The gym teacher, principal, and student counselor, however, did not have any recollection or records of this child being aggressive with other students.
The students began playing a soccer game, and the injured student testified that the other child was not playing for either team but was attempting to grab the ball from the students who were playing soccer. The situation escalated, and the injured student claims the child tackled him resulting in injury. Other students from the class testified they thought the game had turned unnecessarily rough. The gym teacher testified he had seen the incident but thought it was a normal scrum for a soccer ball.
The Tort Immunity Act provides immunity for public bodies and public employees in limited circumstances. Section 3-108 of the Act immunizes a local public entity for negligent supervision of, or negligent failure to supervise, an activity on public property. However, there is an exception to this immunity where an employee of the public body acts with utter indifference or conscious disregard for the safety of others.
The trial court held that the claims in the lawsuit were not sufficient to state a cause of action because the gym teacher’s conduct did not rise to the level of utter indifference or conscious disregard to defeat tort immunity. On appeal, a divided appellate court reversed the decision of the trial court and found that there was a dispute of fact regarding whether the child was known to be aggressive and whether the gym teacher acted with conscious disregard for the student’s safety based on this knowledge.
On appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court, the Court
held that because the complaint had not alleged conduct amounting to utter
indifference or a conscious disregard for safety, the school district was
immune from liability under Section 3-108 of the Tort Immunity Act. The Court
concluded that the actions of the teacher did not rise to the level of willful
and wanton conduct.
Post Authored by Alexis Carter, Ancel Glink
