The $48,630 bill handed to a Nanaimo student’s parents this week sounds a bit steep. It arises from a Supreme Court judgment that they are legally responsible for the damage that flowed from their son’s foolishness.
Even the judge who delivered the verdict remarked on how unfortunate the result is, noting it could be unfortunate for others in the future. But the law is the law and Justice Shelley Fitzpatrick worked through a number of precedents before concluding the parents have to pay the bill, plus interest and assorted costs.
The consequences from the silly stunt are obviously more dire than were intended, she said.
As reported Friday, the 14-year-old jumped up and hooked a classmate’s padlock to a sprinkler head as a prank three years ago. The sprinkler and many others activated and there was widespread damage to Wellington Secondary School.
The law that came into play was the School Act. Specifically, the section reading: “If property of a board … is destroyed, damaged, lost … by the intentional or negligent act of a student…, that student and that student’s parents are jointly and severally liable to the board … in respect of the act of that student.”
The judge noted: “If there is to be any change to this provision of the School Act, that is a matter for the legislature, not the courts.” The government said no changes are planned. It’s been in force since the 1950s but the judge said it’s received scant attention from the courts over the years. “No court has yet wrestled with the interpretation issue that arises in this case.”
Seeing the effect probably startled a lot of parents this week.
“It is agreed by the parties that he had no intention to activate the sprinkler head and that his sole intention was to lock the padlock to the metal ring surrounding the sprinkler head,” said the judge.
The boy immediately confessed during the subsequent evacuation of the school about what he’d done.
Steven Rae, the new chairman of the Nanaimo-Ladysmith school board, said Friday it was the district’s insurance company that pursued the case.
Although the district is listed as the plaintiff and referred to as such throughout the judgment, he said it was the insurance company that prompted the action, after paying out the school district’s claim for damages.
The family might also be insured, depending on their coverage. Rae said he wasn’t aware of the case or the decision until the afternoon it was released.
Just as startling as the bill is the idea an insurance company can apparently force the issue. The judge agreed the section appears to be “draconian,” for the disastrous financial effect it could have on a family.
She cited an earlier judgment in a different case that said the section can inflict “a harsh and perhaps unjust burden of potentially ruinous dimensions” on parents quite irrespective of fault.
The Nanaimo case revolved around what “intentional act” means and the legal interpretation of negligence. The family’s legal argument was that an intentional act must be accompanied by an intention to cause damage, which wasn’t present in the case. The judge rejected that argument and noted negligence can come about from circumstances beyond a purely intentional act and may arise from an act or a failure to act. The boy knew he couldn’t attach the lock anywhere he wanted and it was reasonably foreseeable that if he acted inappropriately, he could cause damage, she found.
She also ruled out all arguments that the school district was negligent by not protecting the sprinklers better, or supervising the boy more closely. So the family is on the hook for a considerable bill, based on the first real legal test of a section of the School Act.
It’s reminiscent of a Langford case in 2011, when the municipality pursued the parents after a case of outright vandalism by their child. It won a judgment in what was considered a ground-breaking case.
A full apology and some restitution might have satisfied many in the Nanaimo case. But the School Act allows for a lot more than that if the board — or its insurance company — wants payback.
