TALLAHASSEE (CBSMiami/NSF) – A Florida appeals court Wednesday said the Palm Beach County School Board cannot be held responsible for injuries suffered by a child who was hit by a car while crossing a road to a school bus stop.
A three-judge panel of the 4th District Court of Appeal overturned a circuit-court decision and said the school board is entitled to summary judgment in the lawsuit filed by Corene Edwards on behalf of her child, identified in the ruling by the initials Q.E.
The lawsuit contended that the school board created a “foreseeable zone of risk” through its placement of the bus stop or unclear communication about the stop’s location, according to the ruling.
But appeals-court Judge Jeffrey Kuntz, joined by Judges Robert Gross and Melanie May, wrote that the “school board did not have a duty to warn because it did not create the busy roadway.
Moreover, the child was not in the custody of the school board when the accident occurred.
The accident occurred while the child was trying to reach her school bus stop. Therefore, the child was outside the school board’s duty of care.”
The two-page ruling did not provide detail about the accident, but a 2016 story by the television station WPEC said the girl was severely injured in the September 2015 accident.
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