Understanding Negligent Supervision Claims

In life, there are times when someone is charged with the obligation to look after someone else. The supervisor is doing this not just for the safety of the person being supervised, but also for the safety of society—that is, for the benefit of whomever the supervised person could possibly injure if left unsupervised.

One or Two Defendants

Negligent supervision claims can involve two Defendants—the person who committed the negligent act, and the person supervising him or her—but because the person being supervised usually is a minor, or someone that isn’t in a position to understand what he or she does, it is usually the supervisor that will have sole liability for whomever the supervised person injures.

Two Kinds of Negligent Supervision

There are really two kinds of negligent supervision claims.

The first involves the complete failure to supervise. Imagine a 14 year old driving a golf cart on someone’s property, and injuring someone else, or an 8 year old injuring another 8 year old in a pool because of rough horseplay, while the responsible adult was watching TV, on their phone, or in the home.

These are situations where there just is no supervisor at all, or else, a supervisor who isn’t where he or she is or was supposed to be, or not doing what he or she was supposed to be doing.

The other kind of negligent supervision claim has supervisors and they may well be doing their job—there just aren’t enough of them to be able to reasonably ensure that everybody is safe.

This is common when kids have “play dates,” especially younger kids. When a child has 4, 5, or 6 young people in the home, a single adult may simply not be sufficient to ensure safety and security, no matter how hard that adult tries.

What is Enough?

What is or is not enough supervision (that is, enough supervisors) will vary from case to case, and often depends on the testimony of experts who can testify how many supervisors should be present, for a given number of people being supervised.

What Caused the Injury?

Negligent supervision cases also bring up the issue of causation.

Let’s say that the 8 year old in the example above injures another 8 year old because there are 10 kids in the house and one adult.

Was the injury to the injured 8 year old, actually caused by the lack of, or insufficient, supervision? In other words, assuming an adequate ratio of supervisors to kids being supervised, would the accident have happened anyway?

Many defendants will defend these claims by contesting causation, saying that an accident or injury was sudden, quick, unexpected, unanticipated, or could never have been prevented, no matter how many supervisors were present. Of course, that is a factual issue, for a jury to decide.

Injured by a minor, or anybody who was supposed to have been supervised by someone else? Contact our Rhode Island personal injury lawyers at Robert E. Craven & Associates at 401-453-2700 today.

Source:

enjuris.com/children-accidents/negligent-supervision-of-child/