Angela Dextraze v. Timothy Bernard

Syllabus

This suit arose out of an assault by one student on another at the Ponaganset High School. The injured student and his parents filed suit against the Foster-Glocester Regional School District alleging that the defendant failed to provide the injured student with a safe environment and failed to supervise the aggressor student. Following a jury verdict in favor of the plaintiffs, the Superior Court denied the school district's motions for judgment as a matter of law and for a new trial, and the school district appealed. Before the Supreme Court, the defendant argued that the plaintiffs offered no evidence (expert or otherwise) to establish the standard of care or proximate causation. The Supreme Court held that expert testimony was not needed where there was evidence that the school district exercised no degree of care in the face of a known, foreseeable danger. The Court further held that the record demonstrated that the plaintiffs presented sufficient facts upon which a jury could find that the school district's failure to act was a substantial cause of the plaintiffs' injuries. Thus, the Court affirmed the judgment of the Superior Court.