2. Children as defendants
A child can be sued in negligence, but the plaintiff must still prove the ordinary elements of the tort.
Standard of care
Unlike criminal law, there is no minimum age for liability in tort; however, children are not held to the same objective standard of care as adults. The standard applied is scaled according to the child’s age.
Instead of the “reasonable adult” standard, the court asks what could be objectively expected of an ordinary child of that specific age. This standard takes into account the child’s stage of development and their limited capacity for foresight or prudence. The court considers whether a reasonable child of that age would have anticipated that their actions could cause significant injury.
For a child to be held liable, his conduct must be “careless to a very high degree” or fall significantly outside the norm for a child of their age. For example, in one case, a 13-year-old boy was not held liable for running into a supervisor while playing tag in an area of school where he was permitted to play, as he was simply “doing what boys do” and had not broken any rules.
