Educational malpractice is a sub-type of negligence. Negligence is traditionally thought of as having four elements: Duty, Breach of Duty, Proximate Cause, and Injury (personal or property).
An easy-to-understand hypothetical is a car crash. You have a duty to stop at a red light when driving. You breach your duty by failing to stop at the light and colliding with another vehicle. Your breach of duty proximately caused the collision with the vehicle and caused damage to the vehicle.
Now, let’s take these elements and apply them to an educational malpractice claim. The argument goes that a CFI or flight school has a duty to properly instruct a student on the safe operation of an aircraft (Duty). If the CFI or school fails in that duty (Breach), a reasonable and foreseeable consequence (Proximate Cause) of failing to adequately instruct is that the student may later crash an aircraft and cause damage (Injury).
In the United States legal system, historically, educational malpractice claims have been disfavored. Many courts have decided that public policy does not allow past evaluation of the duty to educate. Only a handful of states, however, have considered whether a flight instructor is subject to educational malpractice. Courts in at least seven states—South Dakota, Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, California, and Minnesota—have stated that educational malpractice claims are not allowed. Courts in Montana, New York, and Florida, on the other hand, have ruled that educational malpractice claims against flight instructors and schools may proceed.
In a recent case, filed in Illinois but applying Florida law, the court determined that, while Illinois law would not allow educational malpractice negligence, Florida law does. The facts from this case stem from a fatal airline accident in Cuba on May 18, 2018, in which 75 people died. According to the plaintiffs, Global One, a Part 142 training center that provided training to the accident crew, negligently failed to train and instruct the flight crew in the proper and safe operation of the aircraft. Due to Global One’s allegedly negligent training and instruction, the plaintiffs argued that, shortly after takeoff, the aircraft “went into a stall, rudder hardover, and/or pitch oscillation[,]” caught fire in the engine, and then flipped over and crashed, resulting in the decedents’ injuries and deaths.
The court considered whether to throw out the case early or let it continue. The court concluded that Florida law applies and as such the educational malpractice bar would not apply and the case could move forward. In reaching this decision, the court relied on a 2013 Florida case which allowed educational malpractice claims.
Although most states view education malpractice claims negatively, some states allow flight instructors and schools to be subject to liability for accidents that occur well after students have left their school. While most states believe that courts are ill-suited to review claims related to training pilots, a minority think otherwise. The best way for CFIs to defend themselves is to research their state’s negligence laws and obtain an insurance policy that insures for previous instruction liability and not just liability when the CFI is present.
