Anatomy of a Lawsuit
What Every Education Leader Should Know About Legal Actions
- Robert J. Shoop - Kansas State University, USA
- Dennis R. Dunklee - Emeritus, George Mason University, Virginia, USA
A few examples of the hundreds of situations in which school leaders have recently been involved as defendants, plaintiffs, witnesses, or respondents include:
o Criminal defendant: sexual assault
o Civil defendant: employment discrimination
o Criminal plaintiff: coach assaulted by parent
o Civil plaintiff: teacher alleging defamation
o Character witness: student seeks diversion agreement
o Factual witness: administrator passing in hallway when science lab explodes
o Respondent to interrogatories: principal required to compile and produce employment records, curriculum guides, test scores, and more
o Consulting expert witness: school leaders helping attorneys understand high-stake testing procedures
o Testifying expert witness: explaining proper methods of instruction in the use of industrial art shop equipment
The book examines similar situations and others that have arisen out of, or due to, civil or criminal negligence on the part of school leaders, and provides examples, some of which were handled correctly with positive outcomes and others in which specific errors caused significant problems.
"This is a remarkable book. The authors provide concise, user-friendly descriptions of the various players in civil lawsuits and a definition of their roles and functions."
"In their timely and terse treatise, the authors assert that school leaders should view litigation as a routine function of successful practitioners who, in our increasingly litigious society, must be fully cognizant of basic principles of civil and criminal law."