Voting a kid out of class?

Although I can’t remember everything that happened when I was five, I certainly don’t remember standing in front of my class hearing whether the other kids wanted to vote me out of class and why. In Port St. Lucie, Florida, a five year old boy by the name of Alex Barton was subjected to this type of ridicule and his mother is now considering taking legal action.

Alex was forced to stand in front of his classmates and had to listen to whether they liked him or not. His teacher then allowed the children to vote and Alex was voted out of the class by a 14 – 2 vote. To complicate matters, Alex is in the process of being diagnosed with Aspberger’s Syndrome, which is a form of Autism. It is unclear exactly what brought on the vote but it seems there was some discord among the children and the teacher felt it was her job to do something about it. Hmm, strange choice of actions by a teacher I would say. Much different than my first grade math teacher, Miss Bonness, who liked to give us cookies in class.  

Let’s look at the mother’s ability to take legal action. Of course she would be suing on behalf of her son as his guardian ad litem (in a nutshell, this term can be used when a parent is allowed to sue on behalf of their child) but the question is, what are her claims? Infliction of intentional emotional distress (IIED)  is one that would come to mind. The elements include 1.) Extreme and outrageous conduct 2. ) Intention of causing emotional distress, or reckless indifference to the likelihood of causing emotional distress  and 3.) Actual and severe emotional distress suffered by the plaintiff as a result of the defendant’s extreme or outrageous behavior.  

Now, I won’t bog everyone (did I just use the word “bog”) down with case law and the specifics of Florida law but something to notice in this type of cause of action is the element of causation, literally. The law will look to the specific cause of the plaintiff’s damages. In this case, the question being whether the teacher intentionally meant for her behavior to cause such distress to the young child. (at this point you should be saying to yourself, if she didn’t know it would cause distress, we have some serious problems in the school system) One might also argue that the child, who is now having severe reactions regarding the incident, was prone to Aspberger’s Syndrome so the child’s reaction might be stronger than it would have normally been. However, I am not sure even a grown adult would want to be subjected to this type of behavior, much less a five year old child. 

One might also say the teacher did not have any “intent” to cause any type of emotional harm to the child. Again, hard to understand that one but there is also a claim to be made for Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress which looks at the circumstances, rather than the defendant’s (in this case the teacher) actual intent. The idea is that everyone has a “duty” to prevent causing emotional distress in others regardless of what their intent actually is. I am sure everyone is starting to think to themselves, wait a minute, my boss causes me to have emotional distress every day by asking me to do work I don’t want to do so does that mean I can sue him/her? Of course not but you can entertain yourself by thinking about it.

In any event, there are a few other claims that the mother might file but there might be some issues in the case of witnesses, the teacher’s side of the story and how to actually prove the damages. Apparently the school is saying the claim does not meet the criteria for child abuse but I am hoping that will not stay the case. The parent in this case has various factors to consider before filing a claim, that is for sure.  

I hope the teacher is disciplined in some way and I hope to see more on this case as I am very curious as to how something like this could really happen.  Tomorrow will be a much happier post.  

http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2008/may/23/st-lucie-teacher-has-class-vote-whether-5-year-old/