A Florida appeals court may have created a new form of tort liability by ruling that a woman can sue a school district over injuries she suffered while chaperoning students on a field trip.

The School Board of Broward County is not immune from liability for failing to properly train chaperones, the 4th District Court of Appeal said in reinstating the negligence case of Julia Gearhart-Soto, who was injured during a class trip to a Ripley's Believe It or Not museum in St. Augustine.

One of the students, Joshua Delsman, climbed over a fence designed to stop the public from touching a two-way mirror at one of the exhibits. As a security guard approached the exhibit, he tried to climb back over the fence, fell and was injured. Gearhart-Soto was injured coming to his aid.

A teacher who was also a chaperone had stayed outside the museum to monitor students who did not want to go on the tour. Another of the chaperones saw Delsman scale the fence but chose not to intervene, believing he did not have the authority.

“Whether the School Board is liable to Gearhart-Soto for the teacher’s absence from the museum, for the chaperone’s inaction, or for failing to properly train the chaperones as to their supervisory authority are questions of fact for which a jury may find the School Board liable,” the appeals court said in a March 5 opinion.

Public officials in Florida are immune from liability for discretionary acts. But the 4th District said policy decisions relating to chaperones fall under a precedent which “held that the duty to supervise students is ministerial.”

By Matthew Heller
3/14/08