{"id":36323,"date":"2024-04-10T12:15:54","date_gmt":"2024-04-10T18:15:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=36323"},"modified":"2024-04-10T12:21:23","modified_gmt":"2024-04-10T18:21:23","slug":"bill-advanced-to-allow-child-abuse-claims-against-schools-local-governments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=36323","title":{"rendered":"Bill advanced to allow child abuse claims against schools, local governments"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lawmakers gave first-round approval April 9 to a proposal that would allow political subdivisions to be sued for harm caused to a child by sexual or other abuse under certain circumstances.<\/p>\n

\"Sen.
Sen. Justin Wayne<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LB25, as originally introduced by Omaha Sen. Justin Wayne last session, would establish a process for awarding punitive damages in civil actions.<\/p>\n

Wayne offered an amendment to a pending Judiciary Committee amendment during general file debate April 9 that gutted the bill and instead would allow civil claims involving child sexual or other abuse under the Political Subdivisions Tort Claims Act.<\/p>\n

Claims could be filed if the harm done is a \u201cproximate result\u201d of a political subdivision\u2019s failure to exercise reasonable control over an employee or failure to protect a person in their care, custody or control from harm by a non-employee.<\/p>\n

The existing act has a cap of $1 million, Wayne said, and claims could not be made against the state. Political subdivisions would be liable only if a victim can demonstrate that \u201creasonable care\u201d was not taken to protect a child from abuse by an employee or an outside entity while in the political subdivision\u2019s care \u2014 such as on a field trip, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery parent is sending their kid to school with the assumption that they\u2019re going to be ok \u2026 but somehow this reasonable care, when it comes to sexual assault, we feel schools can\u2019t meet that standard?\u201d Wayne said.<\/p>\n

North Platte Sen. Mike Jacobson opposed the amendment, saying he would prefer a measure that was limited only to schools or with a smaller cap on damages. He said attorneys for victims pursue entities that they believe will provide the most monetary gain for their clients and that are motivated to settle lawsuits.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing that we always need to keep in mind is, whenever an attorney [is] representing a client \u2014 who’s suing on their behalf \u2014 they’re looking for the deep pockets,\u201d Jacobson said.<\/p>\n

Sen. George Dungan of Lincoln pushed back on that characterization, saying attorneys are not \u201cambulance chasers\u201d but are seeking to help individuals who have been hurt.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reality of the situation is [that] the individuals who are doing this kind of work, the vast majority of the time, are doing so to protect and to help individuals who have been wronged, and to try to prevent that behavior in the future by virtue of holding the perpetrator accountable monetarily,\u201d Dungan said.<\/p>\n

Speaking in support of the bill, Bayard Sen. Steve Erdman said lawmakers should be more concerned with protecting children than protecting schools from financial liability. Schools that are doing what\u2019s necessary to keep children safe \u201chave nothing to fear\u201d from the proposal, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is for those schools who may not be doing things right,\u201d Erdman said. \u201cThis is trying to protect those children who are in a situation that is unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senators voted 32-15 to adopt Wayne\u2019s amendment and 27-12 to adopt the committee amendment. They then advanced LB25 to select file on a 26-14 vote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lawmakers gave first-round approval April 9 to a proposal that would allow political subdivisions to be sued for harm caused to a child by sexual or other abuse under certain circumstances.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36317,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13],"tags":[191],"class_list":["post-36323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-judiciary","tag-sen-justin-wayne"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/LB25Wayne4-9-24d.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36323"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36327,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36323\/revisions\/36327"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/36317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}