What happened to the paddle?

The 11th Circuit decided a case last week that bears mention. In Peterson v. Baker, et al (No. 06-16180, October 25, 2007), the Court decided that the imposition of corporal punishment on a mis-behaving student was not so severe that it "shocked the conscience" of the court. From the holding, one might presume that this is a paddling episode. Nope.

Jonathon Peterson was an 8th grader in remedial reading class who was cutting up with one of his friends. Jonathon's friend got sent to the Principal's office, and Jonathon decided (on his own) that he would accompany his friend. The teacher...Amber Baker...blocked Jonathon's path, and when he removed her arm from the doorway, Amber grabbed Jonathon by the throat and choked him until he complied.

Following the factual recital, the Court goes through a rather typical analysis for constitutional torts, and opines that this incident does not rise to the level of a constitutional violation. That's all well and good, but the Court fails to mention that almost every state in the South provides blanket immunity for schoolteachers for their conduct -- meaning that if Jonathon does not have a constitutional case, he has no case at all.

Cases like this tell you a couple of things. Most obvious, the world has changed. School is becoming less about learning and more about protection. (Which makes me wonder why the newspapers are so intent on telling us otherwise). Less obvious is the disingenuous writings of federal courts in cases like this. Federal courts apparently would have readers believe that the reason for dismissing a case like this is the existence of a body of state law that makes the federal courts intervention into "run of the mill tort cases" unnecessary. Well, the body of state tort law says that the litigant cannot sue in state court. Belittling litigants that are forced to file in federal court as though they are trying to make a federal case out of a small meaningless dispute is equally unnecessary.