Recreation and Parks Law Reporter (RPLR) case report, © copyright 1998 NRPA

FAILURE TO SUPERVISE SCHOOL PLAYGROUND MERRY-GO-ROUND
ROLLINS v. CONCORDIA PARISH SCHOOL BOARD
465 So.2d 213 (La. App. 3 Cir. 1985)
Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Third Circuit
March 6, 1985

On March 2, 1982, plaintiff Lisa Rollins, a nine-year-old fourth grade student, fractured her leg when she fell off a merry-go-round during a physical education class on school grounds. The facts of the case were as follows:

The class consisted of approximately 40 students. The girls in the class were playing on the playground equipment and the boys in the class were playing basketball on a basketball court about fifteen feet away. Mrs. Linda Green, a substitute teacher, was supervising the class by walking back and forth between both groups when, at approximately 9:30 A.M., she observed that the merry-go-round was spinning too fast. The merry-go-round was propelled by the girls sitting on it and pushing it with their feet.

Recognizing the danger, Mrs. Green told the girls, including Lisa, to slow down and get off. Just as she admonished Lisa and the other girls, she heard two boys arguing over a basketball and one of them yelled for Mrs. Green. Mrs. Green turned away from the merry-go-round and walked toward the boys leaving the girls still rapidly spinning on the merry-go-round. Mrs. Green walked about twenty feet when she heard one of the girls yell that Lisa was hurt, so she returned to help Lisa. When she reached Lisa she asked what happened and Lisa told her that she fell off the merry-go-round and hurt her leg.

The trial court found that the defendant School Board was negligent in not properly supervising the playground activities. Further, the trial court found that Rollins was guilty of contributory negligence. Specifically, the court found that Rollins was "fifty percent at fault" in causing her own injury. As a result, the trial court "reduced the damage award for her injuries from $10,000 to $5,000" pursuant to the state comparative negligence statute.

On appeal, the defendant School Board contended that "the trial court erred in finding that the School Board was negligent in failure to provide adequate supervision." As described by the appeals court, "the standard of care imposed upon teachers concerning adequate supervision" was as follows:

[A] school board is not the insurer of the lives or safety of children. School teachers charged with the duty of superintending children in the school must exercise reasonable supervision over them, commensurate with the age of the children and the attendant circumstances. A greater degree of care must be exercised if the student is required to use or to come in contact with an inherently dangerous object, or to engage in an activity where it is reasonably foreseeable that an accident or injury may occur.

The teacher is not liable in damages unless it is shown that he or she, by exercising the degree of supervision required by the circumstances, might have prevented the act which caused the damage, and did not do so. It is also essential to recovery that there be proof of negligence in failing to provide the required supervision and proof of a causal connection between the lack of supervision and the accident.

According to the appeals court, adequate supervision involves "an examination of whether the supervision was reasonable in light of the age of the children involved and the circumstances surrounding the accident." The issue in this case was, therefore, "whether Mrs. Green's supervision of Lisa's physical education class was adequate in light of the particular circumstances involved at the time of the accident." Further, the appeals court acknowledged a "well-established principle" of appellate review that "a trial court's finding of negligence is a finding of fact that cannot be overturned unless the court's finding constitutes manifest error."

In the opinion of the appeals court, the facts in this case indicated that "Mrs. Green abandoned what she had already determined to be a perilous situation to investigate an argument over a basketball."

In the present case, the evidence shows that two regular classes were combined to allow one teacher a free period. Another teacher was available and could have been present to help supervise the class. Mrs. Green saw that the young girls were going too fast on the merry-go-round and obviously feared that someone might get hurt. This is evidenced by her telling the children to slow down and get off the merry-go-round. Instead of making sure the children heeded her warnings, she abandoned what she had already observed to be a perilous situation to deal with another situation that was not urgent or dangerous.

Mrs. Green testified that immediately after she first warned the nine-year-old girls to slow down and get off the merry-go-round she heard the boys yelling on the basketball court... She estimates that at least thirty seconds elapsed between the time she turned away from the merry-go-round she thought was going too fast and when she heard the girls yell that Lisa was hurt. Mrs. Green testified that she didn't know if the boys were actually fighting or just hollering at each other because she never reached the boys... Had the boys actually been fighting she would have been able to see them and had they been in danger she probably would not have casually walked over to see what the problem was...

The rapid speed of the merry-go-round and Mrs. Green ordering these nine-year-old children off the merry-go-round, but without herself making sure the children stopped and got off, was an activity where it was reasonably foreseeable that an accident or injury would occur.

Based upon the above examination of the facts, the appeals court found that 'Mrs. Green failed to exercise a greater degree of care by which she might have prevented the act which caused the injury." As a result, the appeals court concluded that the trial court's finding that supervision was inadequate under these circumstances was not "manifestly erroneous... especially in light of the fact that another teacher was available but not used to help supervise the class."

Similarly, the appeals court found that the trial court was not clearly wrong "in finding Lisa contributorily negligent and reducing the amount of damages for her injuries by fifty percent." The trial judge had found Rollins guilty of contributory negligence because she was "riding on the inside of the merry-go-round and apparently trying to get off of the merry-go-round while the machine was in motion." The appeals court, therefore, affirmed the trial court's judgment against the defendant school board awarding plaintiff Rollins $5,000 in damages.