Schoolyard court cases discouraged

A CIRCUIT Court judge has strongly discouraged parents from taking civil actions over schoolyard mishaps, saying children should be allowed to play.

Judge Harvey Kenny said if parents continued taking these kind of cases, children would not be allowed to play in the schoolyard any more.

Judge Kenny was speaking in Cork Circuit Court yesterday after he dismissed a civil case taken by Anne-Marie McNulty, Brooklodge, Glanmire, for her eight-year-old daughter, against New Inn national school, Glanmire, Co Cork.

The plaintiffs claimed the child was playing in the yard on November 14th, 2005, when, due to the negligence and breach of duty of the school, a fellow pupil violently pushed her, causing her to fall. As a result, they claimed, she sustained severe personal injury, loss and other damage.

The court heard that the child was in junior infants at the time of the alleged incident and had been playing a game in the yard called London Bridge with friends. She claimed that an African boy in her class had knocked her to the ground and she was helped to her feet by two older children.

The child told the court that there were no teachers or helpers supervising the yard at the time.

She was taken to hospital by her mother where she had to undergo a series of operations for a double fracture of her right arm. She had not returned to the school since the incident.

Special needs assistant Angela O'Callaghan told the court that she was supervising the yard on the day in question with teacher Denis Crowley.

She said the girl was only about a metre from her when she saw her trip over her own feet and fall to the ground. She immediately went to the child's aid, brought her inside the school and administered first aid while a teacher contacted her mother.

She said the child was calm until her mother arrived through the school door shouting.

School principal Michael Desmond said the school was very conscious of health and safety issues and yard supervision was an integral part of this. There were always two members of staff walking up and down the back yard where the younger children played.

Judge Kenny dismissed the case saying he accepted totally the evidence of Mr Desmond, Ms O'Callaghan and Mr Crowley and that what had happened was a mishap.

"Mishaps have happened in the past and will happen in the future," he said. "Even if two teachers were not in the yard at the time, these things happen and I don't think they should be the cause of actions.

"Children should be allowed to play, but if people go on with these kind of cases, children will not be allowed to play in the schoolyard."

Judge Kenny awarded costs to the defendant, saying he must discourage "this sort of thing from happening".