Nebraska Public School System Settles Student Lawsuit

June 25, 2012

Lincoln Public Schools, in Nebraska, has agreed to pay a former middle school student and his parents $30,000 after a classroom stunt left the student with a broken wrist.

The Lincoln Journal Star reports that the settlement comes in a lawsuit filed by a mother on behalf of her son, who was an eighth-grader at Irving Middle School in 2009 when his wrist was broken in a social studies class.

The lawsuit says the boy’s teacher was leading the class in a game in which the boy lay on the floor and two others tried to lift and heave him into the air. The exercise was an attempt to demonstrate the operation of a catapult.

A school district official says the activity is no longer performed in the class.