Negligent tort liability of Florida higher education institutions

During the last thirty years our society has increasingly become more litigious. The reasons behind the increase in legal actions were the enactment of the Tort Act by the Florida legislature, the Civil Rights Act, and Federal Tort Act by the U.S. government. The large monetary awards and the ever-increasing awards in punitive damages have fueled this increase in litigation. Lawyers motivated by the large monetary compensation, typically ranging between one third to one half of the total awards, have been further fueling this litigation explosion. The majority of this litigation is directed to organizations with "deep pockets" which can pay the large monetary awards. Higher Education Institutions (HEI) with large budgets, and therefore "deep pockets", are becoming frequent defendants in negligence tort actions. This study examined the forty published negligence tort cases brought against Florida HEIs from 1845 until 2000. These cases were then classified by type of negligence, cause of action, and damage awards. The most frequently occurring type of negligence was the breach of duty of care. The most frequent cause of action was breach of duty to warn, and medical malpractice had the largest damage awards. A legal framework consisting of Florida and Federal statutory law, as well as Florida and Federal common law was created. The purpose of this legal framework was to identify the areas of the law that causes most of the litigation and help HEI minimize their liability to this legal activity. Based on this legal framework, a training program for HEI employees was outlined. The training program includes a section for all HEI employees, and a specialized section for administration, faculty, maintenance personnel, and security personnel. The findings of this study will be helpful to people working at Florida HEI in minimizing their liability to legal actions directed at them, personally. The results of this dissertation could also be useful to the administration or governing boards of HEIs by aiding them in identifying and reducing their liabilities to the tort of negligence. This study could also be used as a reference by HEIs of other states of the United States. Even though the law differs from state to state, findings that refer to federal statutory or common law are applicable to all states of the Union.