This sad claim involved a young Western Sydney man who suffered physical and psychological injury after being assaulted at school by a group of older students. Unfortunately there were instances of repeated assaults including cowardly criminal assaults in company, bullying and victimisation, extortion and criminal demands for money.
Our client reported this behaviour to police and to teachers at the school and some of the instances of assault were captured on the school’s CCTV footage. Despite these complaints and clear evidence that there was a serious form of repeated bullying going on, the school failed to act in order to provide any reprieve or protection to our client and the assaults continued. Ultimately, the school’s failure to act resulted in our client suffering serious physical injuries, including a fractured spine, and ongoing psychiatric injury.
As our client was under 18 years of age at the time he suffered this injury, his distraught mother approached Gerard Malouf and Partners on his behalf to enquire about whether or not he was entitled to make a claim against the school for personal injury compensation. We then, on a no win no fee basis, took on the case and began to investigate the cause and circumstances of the injuries he suffered. Julie Baqleh, Senior Solicitor and Accredited Personal Injury Specialist, took carriage of the matter.
As liability was contentious in this claim, Ms Baqleh made the decision to obtain a comprehensive expert report on liability from an education expert who stated that the school failed to respond adequately to the serial bullying experienced by our client. Ms Baqleh then had our client assessed by an expert psychiatrist to determine the nature and extent of his psychological injuries. Our client was ultimately diagnosed with Chronic Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Chronic Depressive Disorder and Post Traumatic Personality Change.
In addition to making a claim for the pain and suffering experienced by our client, our client was also compensated for past and future economic loss, as he was required to leave school and cease working as a result of his subject injuries.
Once we had gathered all relevant evidence in relation to our client’s claim, Ms Baqleh arranged for the parties to participate in a mediation in an attempt to resolve the matter before proceeding to hearing, in order to save our client the stress and expense of ongoing litigation.
With the assistance of one of our expert barristers, Ms Baqleh was able to resolve the matter without proceeding to hearing. We ultimately secured a settlement figure of $75,000 plus legal costs for our client. Our client and his mother were both very grateful for our assistance and felt that they had finally achieved some sort of justice for the terrible experience he had as a result of bullying at school.
If you have suffered injury and believe that someone else’s negligence may be the cause, please contact our expert personal injury compensation lawyers for free advice or to arrange an obligation free consultation on 1 800 004 878.
