For those who have been harmed: why schools pay for children's fights
In the Orenburg gymnasium in January 2025, one child beat another, causing serious harm to his health. The victim's parents went to court to seek compensation for moral damage, but it was not the offender's parents who paid for the incident, but the school. An educational organization almost always pays for the "showdown" of children under the age of 14. This is a judicial practice that has developed in Russia. Izvestia has figured out in which cases a school can be found innocent and whether this practice works in the case of bullying.
What did the school pay compensation for?
The Central District Court of Orenburg ruled on the claim of the parents of a student of gymnasium No. 7 back in mid-November, but it has only now become known about this case. According to the statement, the defendants' son inflicted grievous bodily harm on the plaintiffs' son "out of hooligan motives." Their nature is not disclosed, and the court does not publish the materials of the meeting.
Initially, compensation for moral damage was demanded from the parents of the offender, but then the school became the defendant. As a result, the gymnasium will have to pay compensation for moral damage in favor of the minor in the amount of 200 thousand rubles, in favor of the parents — 75 thousand rubles and in favor of the minor's sister — another 50 thousand rubles. In total, the fight between two teenagers cost the school 325 thousand rubles.
Elena Glukhovskaya, head of the Orenburg administration's education department, stressed in a comment to Izvestia that she had been informed about the trial, but the department was not a party to the process and was not present at the meetings. She pointed out that according to the law on Education, schools "must create safe conditions for learning, educating students, supervising and caring for students."
The Department of Education did not conduct its own investigation of the accident, as this is the prerogative of the school itself. The proceedings inside the gymnasium were handled by a commission headed by the director, staff and the chairman of the council of high school students. As a result, the principal limited himself to disciplinary action against the teacher on duty.
Why is the school to blame?
Judicial practice is such that schools are almost always at fault in such situations, says Oleg Samsonov, a private practice lawyer. He cited the example of several similar cases that had been tried by courts across Russia in recent years.
So, in the Khabarovsk Territory in March 2025, the parents of a child injured in a fight sued the school for compensation for medical expenses (7.5 thousand rubles), compensation for moral damage (200 thousand rubles) and reimbursement for legal fees (20 thousand rubles). A school in the village of Vostochny had to pay another 60 thousand rubles for conducting a forensic examination. The conflict cost the school almost 300 thousand rubles when a student punched another student "once in the face".
Another case is from the Sverdlovsk region. In Kachkanar, the conflict of children that occurred in December 2023 was considered. Then the teenager, leaving the school building, beat the girl: in front of classmates he struck about five blows in the face, kicked her twice. I had to go to a surgeon and a neurologist and be treated at home for 20 days.
Six months later, the Kachkanarsky court brought to justice both the school and the parents of the girl's abuser: 50 thousand rubles each in compensation for material damage.
The courts find schools to blame for these incidents because the educational organization must ensure the safety of the child. At the same time, the school is a priori to blame: it is she who must prove her innocence if one minor has harmed another, that is, convince the court that she has taken all necessary measures, Oleg Samsonov explained.
In practice, this means that all facts of aggressive behavior of a child should be identified and recorded in an educational organization. After that, he must undergo a school psychologist, if necessary, the information must reach the guardianship and guardianship authorities, the Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for Minors, etc.
— If the school does not take these steps, it is guilty by default, — Oleg Samsonov noted. — But even if the school has done everything necessary, the question of how the teachers were on duty, where the cameras were, etc. will still be considered. If this procedure is followed, then by some miracle the school can avoid responsibility. But all the judicial practice on this issue, which I am familiar with, shows that in the event of a conflict between children under the age of 14, it is the school that pays compensation.
A slightly different assessment is given to situations where conflict occurs between schoolchildren from 14 to 18 years old, when children are already entering the age of criminal responsibility.
Is the school to blame for bullying students
A similar practice has developed in the situation of bullying children. For example, this year in the Khabarovsk region, the court demanded that the school pay 270 thousand rubles as compensation for moral damage for the fact that the child was bullied.
The parents of a girl from a village near Khabarovsk appealed to the court with a statement that their daughter had experienced bullying and other forms of violence from 2021 to 2024, but all appeals to the competent authorities regarding the incident remained unsuccessful. 270 thousand rubles were recovered from the school in February 2025, after which the educational organization tried to challenge the decision for a year, but was unable to achieve this. The school tried, in particular, to prove that it conducts bullying prevention activities at school, but this turned out to be insufficient.
In a bullying situation, Oleg Samsonov notes, the plaintiff must also prove the fact of systematic bullying of the child. Only in this case there is a presumption of the school's guilt — and it does not always come to that. So, in the case of one of the private Moscow schools, the facts of bullying could not be proved to the parents, and the courts of all instances refused to satisfy the application.
On the other hand, in the case of the suicide of a minor student of the Shipitsyn agro-industrial College in the Arkhangelsk region in 2024, it was the educational institution that was found guilty, since the teacher-psychologist who worked with the deceased revealed psychological abnormalities in him, but did not bring this information to the attention of the mother, the lawyer explained.
"In terms of bullying, the school's responsibility is usually derived not from responsibility for other people's words, but from improper performance of its duties to ensure the safety and protection of the student's rights," Olga Turunina, lawyer at Leges Bureau Law Firm, explained to Izvestia. — If the school was aware (or should have been aware) of bullying from parent and child appeals, reports, teacher reports, medical documents and other sources, but it did not take reasonable and timely measures, the court usually regards this as inadequate provision of a safe environment.
She emphasizes that the school can protect itself only with the help of documents and factual actions that confirm the reality, and not the formality of supervision at recess, timely response to the incident, taking measures to resolve the conflict and prevent recurrence, etc.
How do schools react to accusatory decisions
Dmitry Kazakov, Chairman of the Teacher trade union, emphasizes that school, first of all, should become an environment where children will feel safe. However, it is impossible to exclude this, and whenever children are injured as a result of a prank or accident, these situations are considered from the point of view of the school's fault, the source told Izvestia.
As a result, "almost everything is forbidden to children in schools now," notes Dmitry Kazakov. It gets to the point where in most educational institutions children are generally forbidden to go outside during recess, and there are attempts to close them in classrooms under the supervision of a teacher: God forbid that someone gets hurt.
— There should be common sense here, but unfortunately there is none. The supervisory authorities are very seriously monitoring injuries in schools. This is important, but you shouldn't hold the school fully responsible for even the most minor injuries. Any activity of children is simply extinguished. This state of affairs is a subject for discussion in the parent and teacher community," Dmitry Kazakov believes.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
