Ramsey County Law Library Blog

A Kansas legislator wants to give teachers and caregivers greater leeway in the physical discipline of children. Current Kansas law allows spanking without leaving marks, but her proposed bill would allow up to 10 strikes of the hand and smacks hard enough to leave redness and bruising. Unsurprisingly, the very idea of physically inflicting red marks on a child has some folks…well, seeing red.    This proposed bill would allow for such punishment of an 18-year old that is still in high school.  (So theoretically, Little Johnny could vote in next fall’s midterm elections, but still get a whoopin’ at school the next day.)  The bill would also allow a parent or caregiver to give authority to school personnel to apply corporate punishment to their child.  (An interesting predicament for a teacher, if some of the kids in the class could be spanked and some could not.)  It isn’t looking like this bill will go far, but it has certainly generated talk and controversy. 

The United States Supreme Court ruled in Ingraham v. Wright 430 U.S. (651 (1977) that the Eight Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment did not apply to corporal punishment in schools, and that this was an area of state authority.  Kansas is thus an exception to the 31 states that do not allow corporal punishment in schools.  A child abuse expert at a nearby hospital stated that spanking is not only less effective than other disciplinary tactics, but is psychologically damaging as well.  To the contrary there is always a choir of comments from those insisting they were spanked as a child and turned out “just fine.”  (Of course, whether or not someone is “just fine” is a subjective question and beyond the scope of this blog.)  Much more information can be found about this subject here.

Minnesota does not allow corporal punishment in schools, but local experts of both Minneapolis and St. Paul public schools suggest that the education system need better structure and/or discipline tactics than those currently employed.  See the Minnesota Department of Education for specific information regarding discipline in Minnesota schools.

In a recent workers compensation slip-and-fall case, the Minnesota Supreme Court held in Dykhoff v. Xcel Energy, et al. that the plaintiff failed to prove a causal connection between her employment and the injury sustained.  In said case, the plaintiff-employee was required to attend training at the Xcel office for which she was instructed to wear dress clothes.  On training day she was wearing 2-inch wooden heels as part of her dress ensemble when she fell on a terrazzo floor and dislocated her knee.  Referring to Minnesota Statute sec. 176.021, the Court held that an employee must show that the job put her at increased risk of injury than what she would face in everyday life.  Here, there was no evidence that the floor this plaintiff encountered was more hazardous than one she would have encountered outside of her job.  The matter of the plaintiff’s shoes came up in oral argument, which had previously been found by the worker’s compensation judge to be a plausible explanation for the fall.  In his dissent, Justice Page stated that the majority ruling contradicted established precedent and standards of fairness, and speculated that “the court deems Dykhoff an undeserving plaintiff because she wore shoes with two-inch heels…”  This case garmered much attention in the January 6 edition of the Minnesota Lawyer, because the Court arguably nixed the previous “positional risk test” and the work-connection balancing test from Bohlin v. St. Louis County et al. , a 2000 WCCA opinion.

Beyond the workers compensation standards considered, the Dykhoff case is not the first time the Minnesota Supreme Court (re)considered a plaintiff’s footwear as possible proximate causation to a plaintiff’s injuries.  In an interesting case from 1968, the Court looked at shoes, fashion, and the design of an entryway mat meant to contend with heavy winter-sloppy shoe traffic before reversing a judgment against defendant bank building at the expense of the high-heel wearing plaintiff who worked in the department store within.   Do cases like these leave a person wearing shoes with 2-inch heels (and far beyond) on wobbly ground for potential causes of action?  How standard or mandatory have high heels become for female dress apparel (especially where a wearer’s job might be concerned)?  Probably standard enough that no one is surprised to see modern remedies developed to help wearers contend with the pain and dangers of high heels, including topical anesthetics and adhesives.   Must high-heel wearers contend with weaker legal footing as well?