Is it worth filing an injury suit?
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Is it worth filing an injury suit?
Hi In the span of about 3-4 weeks, a classmate of mine gave me a concussion and
broke someone else’s nose. She had to get surgery and I most likely will not, but
it’s only been 3 days since the injury and my doctors aren’t yet sure. In recent
months, he has also injured a math teacher and four other students, though none
as badly as me or my friend with the broken nose. Is it worth filing an injury
suit, and is there anything else I can do in order to try to ensure this won’t
keep happening? Also, what would be the benefits of filing a suit and what
repercussions do you predict he would face? He has worked incredibly hard to get
into private high school this year and I wouldn’t want to get that taken away
from him. Thank you so much
Asked on June 12, 2016 under Personal Injury, Massachusetts
Answers:
S.L,. Member, California Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney
Answered 7 years ago | Contributor
The student should be expelled, but that is for the school to decide.
You can sue the student for assault and battery.
Assault and battery are both civil (lawsuit) and criminal. If criminal charges are filed, he will probably be sent to jail since there have been a number of incidents.
Assault is intentionally placing another person in reasonable apprehension of an immediate battery without consent or legal privilege.
Battery is the actual physical contact. Battery is the harmful or offensive touching of the person of another without consent or legal privilege.
Your lawsuit for assault and battery is separate from the criminal case. In your lawsuit, you can seek damages (monetary compensation) for your medical bills and compensation for pain and suffering which is an amount in addition to your medical bills.
Since assault and battery are intentional acts, you can seek punitive damages (a substantial amount) to punish the wrongful conduct.
The benefits of filing a lawsuit would be obtaining compensation for your injury (medical bills and pain and suffering and punitive damages). The repercussions for the student would be liability for those items which his parents would end up paying in the civil case. In the criminal case, the repercussion would be a potential jail sentence. That is all you can do to try to prevent this from happening again. The school could expel him to prevent a repetition of this behavior.
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