Delaware General Assembly

Passed 5/17/22

The General Assembly has ended, the current status is the final status.

HB 277 w/ HA 1

3/23/22

Lynn

This Amendment amends the State Tort Claims Act to ensure that victims of child sexual abuse by public school employees will have the same legal rights as victims of abuse by private institutions and their employees. This Amendment effectively changes the standard of culpability for public schools from “gross negligence” to “negligence” in civil claims based on childhood sexual abuse. Under current law, children who are sexually abused by a employees of a private employer (e.g. daycare providers, private schools, etc.) have more protection than children abused by their teachers and coaches at public schools. There should be one standard of care that holds schools and businesses equally accountable when their recklessness, inattention, or failure to act causes a student to be sexually abused. This Amendment seeks to avoid future instances of courts dismissing childhood sexual abuse cases against public schools after finding that a complaint’s allegations of gross negligence lacked evidentiary support, as occurred in Bates v. Caesar Rodney Sch. Dist., No. 13, 2021, 2021 Del. LEXIS 315 (Del. Oct. 6, 2021) and Collins v. Dutton, No. S19C-01-045, 2019 Del.Super. LEXIS 571 (Del. Super Ct. Sussex County, Nov. 19, 2019).

View HTML View PDF