Ian Mulgrew: Parents pay the price for sons school prank

The B.C. Supreme Court has found the Nanaimo parents of a 14-year-old boy liable for more than $48,000 in damages caused by a school prank.

In a decision released Thursday, Justice Shelley Fitzpatrick said during lunch break on Jan. 17, 2012 in response to a dare, Carson Dean put a padlock on a sprinkler head in Wellington secondary school.

That set off the firefighting system and the alarm causing extensive water damage.

Nanaimo-Ladysmith School District No. 68 sued parents, Cheryl and Kevin Dean, and won $48,630.47 plus interest and legal costs yet to be assessed for the two-day November trial on Vancouver Island.

I am sure that this is a very unfortunate result for the Dean family and perhaps it will be for other families in the future, Justice Fitzpatrick said.

This was clearly the result of a young boy (now 17) misbehaving and thinking that the only grief to come of it would be to (his friend and the locks owner) Ben and perhaps the janitor in removing the padlock. Obviously, more dire consequences followed.

The central issue concerned interpretation of section 10 of the School Act, which says: If property of a board is destroyed, damaged, lost or converted by the intentional or negligent act of a student that student and that students parents are jointly and severally liable to the board in respect of the act of that student.

The section has received scant attention from the courts over the years despite being enacted more than half a century ago.

The Deans argued their son was not negligent and that the act imposed liability only if the student intentionally caused the damage in, say, an act of vandalism.

No court has yet wrestled with the interpretation issue that arises in this case, Justice Fitzpatrick noted.

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Ian Mulgrew: Parents pay the price for sons school prank