Tort Liability for School Bus Operations
Tort Liability for School Bus Operations
The elongated yellow body of a school bus is a familiar sight on the streets and roads of the United States. Because of the frequency and scope of their operations and the manner of their employment, school buses inevitably become involved in motor vehicle accidents and other incidents that result in the bringing of legal actions seeking to recover damages for death, personal injury, or property damage caused by such incidents.
In addition to the standard questions that can arise in any motor vehicle accident case, the operation of school buses creates a number of legal issues unique to the use of that category of vehicle. Damages may be sought for the death or injury of a passenger who is embarking on or disembarking from a school bus or attempting to cross a road in the course of doing so, raising questions that may include the sufficiency of mirrors or other vehicle equipment and the degree of care or attention required to be exercised by a school bus operator or by a passenger, in many cases a young child. Incidents not directly related to the highway operations of school buses, such as assaults committed by drivers or passengers, may also implicate legal issues dealing with the nature and scope of liability for the consequences of such incidents. In some states, governmental units that operate school buses may claim that such operations involve governmental functions and that they should therefore be immune from liability in legal actions arising out of school bus operations, or that they should be relieved of liability because the operator of a particular fleet of school buses is an independent contractor over whose actions a school district or other governmental unit has no control.
Tort law, the branch of the legal system that deals with the recovery of damages for private injuries or wrongs not arising from contractual relationships, has developed in the United States out of the separate legal systems of the individual states rather than out of a single unified body of federal law. As a result, the legal standards governing tort liability for school bus operations will vary from state to state.
