If your child was hurt at an LAUSD school in the San Fernando Valley, on the playground, in PE, in an assault the staff should have stopped, on a school bus or on broken equipment, the claim is against the Los Angeles Unified School District, a public entity, and it must be presented in writing within six months of the injury under Government Code 911.2. The claim is mailed to the Executive Officer of the Board of Education, 333 S. Beaudry Ave., 24th Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90017. The district’s Risk Management office says its staff are not authorized to accept hand-delivered claims, and a letter to the principal or the Region office does not count.
The part that surprises parents is that the six months applies to a child. The general rule pausing deadlines for minors, Code of Civil Procedure 352, has a subsection that removes that pause for claims against public entities. This guide covers what the district owes your child, what to request from the school now, how to file, and when another party is also responsible. Our general guide to the six-month government claim deadline explains the claims process for every public entity. This post is about LAUSD schools.
What the district owes a student
Government Code 815.2 makes a public entity liable for injury caused by an employee’s act or omission within the scope of employment if the employee would have been liable personally. That is the statutory basis for most school injury claims, whether the employee was the aide who left the yard or the bus driver who ran a light.
The duty is clearly stated. In Dailey v. Los Angeles Unified School District (1970), a sixteen-year-old died at Gardena High School during lunch after “slap boxing” with a classmate while the assigned supervisors were not watching. The California Supreme Court held that school authorities have a duty to “supervise at all times the conduct of the children on the school grounds and to enforce those rules and regulations necessary to their protection,” and that the standard is “that degree of care which a person of ordinary prudence, charged with [comparable] duties, would exercise under the same circumstances.” Education Code 44807 adds that every public school teacher “shall hold pupils to a strict account for their conduct on the way to and from school, on the playgrounds, or during recess.”
Districts have defenses. Government Code 820.2 immunizes a public employee, and through 815.2 the district, for injuries resulting from the exercise of discretion vested in the employee, even if that discretion was abused. Policy-level choices, such as how many aides to assign to a yard, are argued to be discretionary; the failure of an assigned aide to watch the yard is argued to be an operational lapse rather than a policy choice, measured against the supervision duty stated in Dailey. A broken railing or a worn-through playground surface is a separate dangerous condition claim under Government Code 835, which requires proof the district knew or should have known about the hazard.
On campus, off campus and the school bus
Education Code 44808 draws the line. A district is not liable for a student’s safety off school property unless it has undertaken to provide transportation, has undertaken a school-sponsored activity off campus, has otherwise specifically assumed responsibility, or has failed to exercise reasonable care under the circumstances, and even then only while the student is or should be under the immediate and direct supervision of a district employee.
In practice, a child hurt at recess, in PE or in a hallway is on school property and the supervision duty applies. A child hurt on a field trip or on the school bus falls within the transportation and school-sponsored activity exceptions. A child hurt walking home on a Van Nuys sidewalk after dismissal has a City of Los Angeles claim rather than an LAUSD claim, absent a specific undertaking by the school.
LAUSD’s Transportation Services Branch runs a fleet of approximately 3,000 district-owned buses, trucks, autos and vans, including 600 compressed natural gas buses. A crash involving a district bus is a claim against LAUSD under Government Code 815.2 for the driver’s negligence, due within six months. If the bus belonged to a private contractor, or if another vehicle caused the crash, the ordinary two-year statute applies to those private parties, but the district claim still has to be presented within six months. Our bus accident page covers bus cases generally.
Bullying and assaults
An assault by another student is the hardest category for parents, because the district’s usual first response is that it cannot control what children do to each other. The law asks a narrower question: did the staff know or have reason to know there was a problem with this student, this spot on campus or this time of day, and did they respond the way a reasonably careful supervisor would. Prior complaints to the school, emails to a counselor and an earlier incident involving the same student all matter. Our California bullying law guide covers the reporting rules and the district’s obligations in detail.
What to request from the school in the first week
Video overwrites on a schedule and records get harder to obtain once a claim is on file. Ask for the following now, in writing, and keep a copy:
- The incident or accident report the school prepared, and the name of the employee who wrote it.
- Any nurse’s office log or first aid record for the day.
- The names of the adults assigned to supervise the area at the time, and the supervision schedule for that period.
- Preservation of any campus video covering the location, with a specific date, time and camera area.
- Your child’s discipline and counseling records and any prior reports you or others made about the same student or hazard.
- For equipment cases, photographs of the equipment before it is repaired or removed, and the maintenance or work order history.
Get medical care the same day and make sure the record states where and how the injury happened. A pediatrician’s note that says “fell from monkey bars at school, no adult present per child” does more than any later argument. For a head injury, ask about concussion evaluation even if the child seems fine.
How to file the LAUSD claim
The district uses its own Claim for Damages to Person or Property form, available from its Risk Finance and Insurance Services office. It carries the six-month warning on its face and must be signed by a parent or guardian when the claimant is a minor. It asks for the date, place and circumstances, a description of the injury, the names of employees involved if known, and the amount claimed if under $10,000; above that, no dollar amount is stated.
Mail the original completed form with any attachments to the Executive Officer of the Board of Education, 333 S. Beaudry Ave., 24th Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90017. The district’s Risk Management office states that its staff are not legally authorized to accept hand-delivered claims, so mail it by a method that gives you a dated receipt. The Board Secretariat can be reached at (213) 241-7002 and the Liability Claims Unit at (213) 241-3120.
Do not send the claim to the school, to the Region office or to the Office of the General Counsel. Under Government Code 915, a claim is presented by delivering or mailing it to the entity’s clerk or secretary, and a claim that lands somewhere else counts only if it actually reaches the Board or its secretary within the deadline.
Six months, even for a child
Code of Civil Procedure 352(b) states that the pause for minors “shall not apply to an action against a public entity or public employee upon a cause of action for which a claim is required to be presented.” A ten-year-old has the same deadline as a teacher hurt the same day.
If the six months has passed, Government Code 911.4 allows a written application for leave to present a late claim, no more than one year after the injury, stating the reason for the delay with the proposed claim attached. Government Code 911.6 requires the district to grant the application if the injured person was a minor during the entire six-month period, or was a minor during any part of it and applies within six months of turning 18 or within a year of the injury, whichever is first. The one-year outer limit counts time during minority, so it does not stretch to the child’s eighteenth birthday.
After the claim is filed
The district has 45 days to act under Government Code 912.4. If it does nothing, the claim is deemed rejected on the last day of that period. If it mails a written rejection, Government Code 945.6 gives six months from the mailing date to file the lawsuit. Only if no written notice is ever mailed does the alternative two-year period from the injury apply.
When someone other than the district is responsible
Other responsible parties are on a different clock. A private contractor that installed or maintained playground equipment, a company that runs an after-school program on campus, a private bus operator, or the driver who hit the school bus can each be liable in an ordinary negligence claim with the two-year deadline under Code of Civil Procedure 335.1, and for a child that two-year period is paused until age 18 under Code of Civil Procedure 352(a). Another parent may be responsible for a child who deliberately hurt yours. Those claims are pursued alongside the district claim, which is the one with the short fuse.
LAUSD in the Valley
LAUSD’s Region North office is at 8401 Arleta Avenue in Sun Valley, (818) 252-5400, and it oversees the district’s Valley schools through networks from San Fernando and Sylmar to Canoga Park and Chatsworth. The Region describes itself as serving about 250 schools and more than 130,000 students. Our Sun Valley page covers the area around the Region office.
How Manoukian Law Firm handles school injury cases
The first call is about the calendar and the records. Preservation requests go out immediately, the claim is drafted to meet Government Code 910 and mailed to the Board of Education with a dated receipt, and the follow-on dates are calendared the same day. Every case is prepared as if it will be tried, and the firm helps families in English, Spanish and Armenian. The office is in Chatsworth, and the firm represents injured people throughout California. Our practice areas page lists the kinds of cases we handle, and our about page describes how the firm works.
Key points
- An injury at an LAUSD school is a claim against a public entity, due within six months under Government Code 911.2, mailed to the Executive Officer of the Board of Education.
- The six months applies to a child; Code of Civil Procedure 352(b) removes the usual pause for minors on government claims, and the late-claim route under 911.4 has a one-year outer limit.
- Schools must “supervise at all times the conduct of the children on the school grounds” under Dailey v. LAUSD, and the district answers for its employees under Government Code 815.2.
- Education Code 44808 limits liability off campus except for school transportation, school-sponsored activities and specific undertakings.
- Request the incident report, supervision assignments and video preservation in writing within the first week.
- Contractors, private bus operators and other parents may also be liable on the ordinary two-year clock.
Frequently asked questions
The school says they filed an incident report. Is that my claim?
No. An internal incident report is a school record. The claim is the district’s form, signed by a parent, mailed to the Executive Officer of the Board of Education within six months.
My child was hurt by another student. Can the district be responsible?
It can be, if the staff failed to supervise the way a reasonably careful adult in that role would have, or if they knew of a risk from that student and did not act. The other student’s parents may also be responsible.
My child was hurt on the walk home. Is that an LAUSD claim?
Usually not. Education Code 44808 limits the district’s responsibility to school property unless the district provided transportation, sponsored the activity or specifically took on responsibility. A fall on a City sidewalk is a claim against the City of Los Angeles, with its own six-month deadline.
We missed the six months. Is the case gone?
Not necessarily. A late claim application can be filed within one year of the injury, and Government Code 911.6 requires the district to grant it when the injured person was a minor during the claim period. After one year the options narrow sharply.
If your child was hurt at a school in Sun Valley, North Hollywood, Van Nuys or anywhere in California, call Manoukian Law Firm at (818) 818-5031 or reach us through our contact page before the six months runs. Consultations are free and there is no fee unless we recover for you.
