School Abuse Compensation

Economic Damages

Economic damages cover the measurable financial losses that survivors and their families experience due to school sexual abuse or related misconduct. These damages aim to restore survivors to the financial position they would have been in had the abuse never happened.

• Medical Expenses: Survivors of child sexual abuse, sexual assault, or physical abuse often require medical treatment for injuries or health conditions directly tied to the abuse. This may include emergency room visits, ongoing doctor care, and even treatment for conditions linked to trauma. In some cases, former students may face reproductive health complications, requiring long-term care.
• Therapy and Counseling Costs: Perhaps the most common category of economic damages involves therapy. Survivors who were sexually abused or emotionally mistreated by teachers, coaches, or school officials often require years sometimes decades of professional counseling to cope with trauma, PTSD, depression, or anxiety.
• Lost Educational Opportunities: Abuse in schools can derail a child’s education. Survivors may withdraw from classes, change schools, or lose focus due to emotional distress. Some drop out entirely, limiting their future earning potential.
• Career Setbacks and Financial Support: Survivors sometimes struggle to maintain employment later in life due to unresolved trauma. Law firms often present expert testimony to show how abuse impacts long-term earning ability, ensuring that survivors receive the financial support they deserve.

By pursuing these damages, survivors can recover tangible costs and rebuild the educational and career paths stolen from them by abuse claims against negligent schools.

Non-Economic Damages

Non-economic damages are more difficult to calculate because they address the invisible injuries caused by school sex abuse. While these losses may not have a dollar value on paper, their impact is often the most devastating.

• Emotional Distress and Trauma: Survivors of sexual assault cases in schools commonly struggle with anxiety, depression, flashbacks, and trust issues. Courts recognize these invisible scars as compensable harms, especially when school administrators ignored suspected abuse or failed to report suspected abuse.
• Loss of Safety and Trust: Schools are supposed to protect children. When school officials or fellow students violate that trust through sexual misconduct or abuse students, survivors often lose faith in authority figures, institutions, and even peers. This erosion of trust is a core aspect of non-economic damages.
• Impact on Relationships: Survivors of childhood sexual abuse or boarding school abuse often face difficulties forming and maintaining relationships later in life. The emotional harm caused by alleged abuse may affect marriages, parenting, and friendships.

Courts in sexual abuse scandals, such as cases in Los Angeles County or North Carolina school districts, have recognized that non-economic damages are critical to providing survivors the resources needed for emotional healing.

Punitive Damages

In some cases, courts may also award punitive damages. These are not designed to compensate survivors for losses, but rather to punish schools and deter future misconduct.

Punitive damages are typically awarded when:

• A school district or school board ignored repeated warnings of suspected abuse.
• School officials or administrators covered up alleged abuse to protect the school’s reputation.
• A school’s negligence showed reckless disregard for the safety of female students, fellow students, or children under their care.
• Institutions allowed teachers or clergy members to continue abuse students or exposing them to sexually explicit content without intervention.

For example, large verdicts in boarding school abuse and clergy abuse scandals have included punitive awards when courts determined that institutional failures were widespread and intentional.