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The most common tort committed by school personnel is negligence (Evans, 1997). Negligence suits often are precipitated by a physical injury to a student (e.g., injury resulting from student-on-student violence). When a student suffers harm and their parents seek vindication in court, the parents are most likely to file a negligence lawsuit in state court (Schill, 1993). Such lawsuits generally allege that the school had a duty (under state common or statutory law) to protect students from foreseeable harm, had knowledge of a specific danger, negligently failed to take reasonable precautions to protect the student, and thus caused the injury by allowing the incident to occur (Schill, 1993; Wood & Chestnutt, 1995).

As noted previously, public schools are an arm of state government. Historically, under common law, a school district could not be held liable for torts committed by the district, officials, or other employees (Russo, 2018). In some states, the immunity of school districts was based on the old English doctrine of sovereign immunity: “The king (state) can do no wrong; you can’t sue the king.” In other states, immunity of school districts was based on the fact that state law provides no funds for the payment of damages; funds for education could not be diverted to pay legal claims (Russo, 2018).