Can a school violence victim receive damages?

Hello. I am a school violence specialist attorney at Daeryun Law Firm.

If you have suffered school violence damage, you can claim civil damages separately from criminal punishment or disciplinary action by the School Violence Countermeasures Review Committee.

That is, if your child has suffered mental and physical damage due to violent acts by the perpetrator student and is receiving treatment, the right to receive legal compensation for it sufficiently exists.

First, the counterparty in the damages claim can be the perpetrator student themselves and their parents.

Even minors under civil law bear certain responsibility if they have committed unlawful acts, and parents have the duty to supervise their children's actions, so if they fail to fulfill their supervisory duty, they bear joint and several damages liability.

Additionally, if the school or teachers knew about the repeated bullying situation and did not take appropriate protective measures, damages claims for this are also possible. This is a matter that requires proving negligence in the school's management and supervision and requires expert legal review.

Damage items can include not only direct treatment costs such as medical expenses, pharmaceutical expenses, and psychological counseling fees, but also future treatment costs, learning loss expenses due to interruption of studies, costs from transferring schools or changing commute, indirect damages to guardians (income loss due to caregiving or work suspension, etc.).

Additionally, you can also claim consolation money for the mental suffering caused by the perpetrators' assault, extortion, and defamation. The amount of consolation money is calculated by comprehensively considering the degree of harm, the persistence of the harmful acts, the results of criminal punishment, the victim's age and recovery possibility.

To prove such damages, it is important to secure all possible materials such as treatment records, medical certificates, school violence review committee resolutions, investigation records, group chat room screenshots, text or SNS evidence, and statements from friends.

In particular, if the victim student is receiving treatment due to mental shock, you must keep medical institution diagnoses and treatment fee receipts, and future treatment plans or specialist opinions can be used as important evidence in calculating consolation money.

The procedure involves filing a civil lawsuit to have the damages amount confirmed by the court. The right to claim damages expires after 3 years from the date of knowing the unlawful act and 10 years from the date of the act, so it is necessary to secure evidence and take legal action as soon as possible.

Daeryun Law Firm comprehensively handles the entire criminal, administrative, and civil process in school violence cases.

In particular, we prioritize the psychological stability of victims through psychological counseling centers and establish strategies to simultaneously achieve damage recovery and legal compensation.

Especially, we collaborate with the digital forensics center to analyze the original metadata of group chat rooms and systematically organize victim statements and medical materials to complete the materials necessary for proving damages.

School violence is a serious human rights violation that has long-term effects on the entire life of school violence victims.

For the recovery and safety of your child, we recommend conducting treatment and legal procedures simultaneously and organizing evidence and records as quickly as possible.

The school violence specialist attorneys at Daeryun Law Firm will closely analyze the characteristics of the case and the degree of damage, and will accompany your child to the end so that they can achieve fair legal compensation and psychological recovery at the same time.