Judge says school board’s breaches of standard of care did not cause incident
The Ontario Court of Appeal has denied an appeal of a decision that dismissed an action alleging that a school board and two school officials were liable in negligence for a 10-year-old student’s injury sustained during a bullying incident.
Rizzuto v. Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board, 2025 ONCA 773, arose from bullying incidents, including a September 2009 incident reported to elementary school officials and a November 2009 incident where two students injured the then 10-year-old in the schoolyard.
The two students responsible for the bullying, originally named as defendants, settled with the injured student and two other appellants.
The appellants filed an action based on negligence against the Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board and the school’s principal and vice principal. The appellants alleged breaches of the standard of care by failing to protect the injured student from bullying.
On July 7, 2023, Justice Michael Bordin of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice dismissed the action.
The trial judge acknowledged that the respondents breached the standard of care by failing to investigate the September incident, misplacing the student accident report regarding that incident, and permitting the destruction of logbooks. However, he determined that:
The appellants challenged the judge’s findings and conclusions. They asserted that the respondents’ failure to investigate the September incident and the loss of the student accident report factually caused the November incident.
The Court of Appeal for Ontario dismissed the appeal upon seeing no palpable and overriding error in the trial judge’s analysis or any basis for appellate intervention. The appeal court ordered the appellants to pay $15,000 in all-inclusive costs, per the parties’ agreement.
First, the appeal court noted that the report to school officials regarding the September incident indicated that the 10-year-old’s knee injury occurred when a fellow student fell on him during a football game, rather than characterizing what happened as an incident of bullying or intentional violence.
Second, the appeal court disagreed with the appellants’ argument that the judge failed to notify them that he would address causation.
The appeal court explained that the appellants had the burden to prove on a balance of probabilities that the injuries would not have occurred but for the respondents’ negligence. The appeal court added that the judge had no obligation to advise the appellants’ counsel that they had to establish this causal link to recover damages.
Next, the appeal court rejected the appellants’ argument that they had proven cause in fact by pointing to the school board’s bullying policies and the fact that the bullying had ceased after school officials had thoroughly investigated the November incident.
The appeal court noted that the judge:
The appeal court pointed out that the appellants’ arguments were attempts to revisit the judge’s determinations. According to the appeal court, it could not review the judge’s factual findings without palpable and overriding error.
