Our charter schools clients will often ask us why they should consider employment practices liability insurance.   We just had a recent claim come up for one of our Nevada charter schools that we feel highlights the need for this insurance even in situations where your school is not at fault:

The Scenario: One of our charter school clients had an employee that was 62 years and had worked at the school for over 10 years.  Over the past several years, this teacher’s work performance had begun to significantly decline to the point where the school had received several complaints from parents, teachers, and other coworkers.  In response to the last complaint, the school decided to terminate the teacher.  The school then hired a much younger (29 years old) replacement teacher.  The teacher filed a charge with the EEOC alleging that the termination was based strictly upon his age.

The Risk Factors: While the school had more than enough reasons to terminate the teacher based upon his performance, many of the issues were not documented properly.  This left the school with little evidence to refute the complaint originated by the former employee.

The Result: The EEOC issued a Right to Sue Letter and the former teacher filed a suit in federal court.  As a result of the incident, the charter school was forced to settle the matter for $150,000 plus an additional $100,000 in defense costs.

The Takeaway:  While this Nevada charter school wasn’t necessarily at fault, they left with a significant fine and defense costs.  Thankfully, the school had insurance to not only protect them in this incident, but they also had their defense costs paid for by the insurance company.

If you have any questions on how employment practices liability insurance can protect your school, please feel free to contact our office.