Civil Liability Act 2003 (Qld)

There are many questions and arguments that remain about the standard of care within schools. Should the current standard of care in relation to schools be increased or remain the same or be substantially reduced? Does law of torts make a teacher’s job too difficult? Should schools always be held liable when a student is injured? ‘A tort is a “civil wrong” and for someone to commit a tort they have to interfere with another person’s rights, or fail in their legal obligations to that person, and this causes the person to suffer.’ (Drew Hopkins, 2008) An example case of civil wrong is State of Victoria v Bryar [1970] 44 ALJR 174.

This legislation places a duty on employers for the health and safety of their employees and anyone else on the premises. This includes responsibility for the teachers, non-teaching staff, children, visitors and contractors. In my

| Section 175 of the Education Act 2002 requires local education authorities and governing bodies of maintained schools and FE colleges to make arrangements to ensure that their functions are carried out with a view to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children.All children deserve the opportunity to achieve their full potential.  The five outcomes that are key to children’s and young people’s wellbeing are: * Stay safe * Be healthy * Enjoy and achieve * Make a positive contribution * Achieve economic wellbeing The school should give effect to their duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of their pupils (students under the age of 18 years of age) under the Education Act 2002 and , where appropriate, under the Children Act 1989 by: * Creating and maintaining a safe learning environment for children and young people. * Identifying where there are child welfare concerns and taking action to address them in partnership with other

It is everybody’s responsibility to safeguard children – This means every single staff member within a setting; irrelevant of what role they may have there. This also includes non-staff members, such as volunteers, student’s third-party companies (visitors, service providers etc). Each setting should therefore adopt their own safeguarding policy, of which has to be kept up to date and followed at all times.

Ensuring children and young people’s safety and welfare in the work setting is an essential part of safeguarding. While children are at school, practitioners act in ‘loco parentis’ while their parents are away. As part of their legal and professional obligations, practitioners hold positions of trust and a duty of care to the children in their school, and therefore should always act in their best interests and ensure their safety – the welfare of the child is paramount (Children Act 1989). The Children Act 2004 came in with the Every Child Matters (ECM) guidelines and greatly impacted the way schools look at the care and welfare of pupils. Children and young people should be helped to learn and thrive and be given the opportunity to

All schools in the UK have a health and safety policy, in which they have to adhere to requirements. There are many current health and safety legislations, policies and procedures. These include the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 which was created to protect those at work by following procedures in order to prevent accidents.

Consequently, the state governments of Australia have similar policies in regards to the liabilities of teachers for personal injury. Under the Wrongs Act 1958 (Vic), the Victorian state government protects Victorian public school teachers from liability. The state will only refuse to do so if the

Duty of care: As an adult working in a school, I have a duty of care to all the children in the school, as do all the other adults working there. Safety issue should always be paramount when looking after children. We are in a position of trust and should always make the children feel valued and important when they are talking to us. It is our duty to keep the environment safe, including online safety. We should ensure only trained staff use positive handling with children. We need to make sure we assess activities to check they are suitable for the age group and provide basic first aid when necessary, contacting the parent/carer to inform them of what has happened. We should supervise children closely when unwell and send them home as necessary, contacting the parent or carer to collect them. It is also very important to protect children from bullying. We should encourage children to speak up if they feel sad and to tell an adult straight away if they feel they are being bullied for whatever reason.

This duty of care can be a general implied minimum standard of care or can be outlined in different codes of practice or guidelines in various legislation. This duty of care can also be more specific and defined in specific legislation for example Equality Act 2010 or the

Police officers deal with both crime and the public on a daily basis, so they need to be diligent in their knowledge of Civil Rights Laws in order to avoid lawsuits that can come from those rights being violated. “The best way to avoid liability is logic and training” (Wells, 2014). The costs for civil liability lawsuits involving police officers/departments just for lack of or inadequate training based on a survey in 2000 were substantial as “the average award for plaintiffs was about $492,000 and attorney fees for the prevailing party averaged $60,000” (Spencer, 2007, p. 2). Some of the most common types of liability lawsuits include “false arrest, unlawful detention, excessive force, assault & battery, unlawful search, unlawful

Dr Threadwell (Dr) has promised to provide medical care to treat JJ’s anxiety and to manage his temper and behaviour. It is established that medical treatment of this kind is a duty of ‘reasonable skill and care’ However, the implied term of the contract that Dr has a duty to keep JJ’s information confidential ought to be recognised as strict, as distinct from the mere requirement of reasonable care and skill. This is because of the importance of confidentiality to JJ and the recognition of this duty generally, in both common law and statute, as mandatory and with limited exception. This strict duty is owed to JJ by all employees of the Dr’s practice.

In brief, ‘Standard of care’ is defined as the breach of duty. Legally this term seems to be confusing always, as it depends on the practical application of care in a daily practice. Currently, in the medical malpractice, the legal definition of the standard of care has been changed due to two specific cases of the past. The first case of T.J. Hooper (owner of a tugboat), who has been sued by the owner of the badges for not taking necessary precautions while at sea has been held responsible as the courts declared precautions are imperative although not recommended universally. This first case served as a support for the second case where an ophthalmologist (Carey), has been held responsible for the loss of

Liability for negligence cannot arise until “it has been established that the man who has been negligent owed some duty to the person who seeks to make him liable for his negligence.” Teachers have a legal duty of care, due to the ‘special characteristics’ of the teacher-pupil relationship to take reasonable care to ensure that students meet with no foreseeable injury

The imposition of a duty for care by the plaintiff on the defendant must be just and reasonable (Davies, 1991; ACCA, 2009).

On a TV program named Toffee with Taran broadcasted on Boom TV, a celebrated name Sania Radukone created an impression communicating her views on her peers. This piece of recording was discarded from the telecasted show however by one means or another was spilled out onto YouTube and went viral on social networking sites. The feature was posted by an account named Kamaal Dhamal Khan. On witnessing this video one of Saina’s contemporaries, Safreena Kaif felt profoundly offended as the views were insinuated towards her which she found to be defamatory. Safreena thinks of filing a case against Saina Radukone, Boom TV and Kamaal Dhamal Khan.