School Board Not Negligent For Not Imposing More Severe Student Discipline

Introduction

On February 8, 2013, the British Columbia Supreme Court dismissed an unusual lawsuit where a parent sued a school board for having failed to sufficiently discipline a student who assaulted and seriously injured their son. The unusual part is that the complaint for harsher discipline stemmed from an unrelated incident that occurred seven months previous to a different student. The injured boy’s parents claimed that harsher discipline for the previous incident to the different student would have prevented the assault on their son.

Facts

On October 5, 2006, grade 9 student Tylor Jackson asked his classmate Makwalla Hall if he could borrow a pencil from him.