Am i entitled to refund on school trip

halibut2209

The school are NOT the innocent party as they are the ones making the arbitrary decision to cancel the contract. If they want to make that decision, then they need to take the responsibility for it.

mynameistallulah

halibut2209 wrote: »

The school are NOT the innocent party as they are the ones making the arbitrary decision to cancel the contract. If they want to make that decision, then they need to take the responsibility for it.

So if an employee commits gross misconduct and gets dismissed by their employer, who is the innocent party? You seem to think it is not possible to breach a contract by conduct?

System

halibut2209 wrote: »

The school are NOT the innocent party as they are the ones making the arbitrary decision to cancel the contract. If they want to make that decision, then they need to take the responsibility for it.

That depends on what the child's done.

halibut2209

mynameistallulah wrote: »

So if an employee commits gross misconduct and gets dismissed by their employer, who is the innocent party? You seem to think it is not possible to breach a contract by conduct?

That's an excellent example, thank you.

Yes the employee can be dismissed (not go on the school trip)

But the company still has to pay them for all the hours they did up to that point (paying back the monies paid)

DVardysShadow

This is not so clear cut as it looks in the first instance.

If the school has paid out, the money may not be refundable - and backtracking a little on what I said earlier, I am beginning to think that a level of gross misbehaviour from a pupil might be grounds not to let the student go on the holiday - even without a good behaviour clause.

But that misbehaviour would have to be fairly gross - such as threatening or attacking another pupil with a knife for example. And it would have to involve a judgement of the kind of gravity that it was not safe to take the pupil on the holiday.

In such a case, I think that a court might uphold cancelling the pupil's place and not refunding anything that the school could not recover. But I am very clear that without a clause, a school could not use withdrawing the pupil's place to merely punish some minor misdemeanour such as talking back to a teacher - and even with such a clause, I think the most that could be charged would be a nominal administration fee - if the school had paid out to a tour company and could not recover, I would expect the school to bear the cost as it was their choice to punish.

halibut2209

goater78 wrote: »

That depends on what the child's done.

Could you elaborate? (serious question, not being facetious).

mynameistallulah

halibut2209 wrote: »

That's an excellent example, thank you.

Yes the employee can be dismissed (not go on the school trip)

But the company still has to pay them for all the hours they did up to that point (paying back the monies paid)

Your analogy falls flat here - we are talking about a future event, not wages paid to date. Where an employee has committed gross misconduct they would not be entitled to any notice period i.e. for a future event.

You failed to answer, who is the innocent party in the given scenario, who is in breach of contract?

wealdroam

halibut2209 wrote: »

The SCHOOL has decided not to take the child on what can only be considered an arbitrary issue.

How are you deciding that the issue is arbitrary?

For all we know, the child may've burnt the school down.
Unlikely, I agree, but hardly arbitrary.

This all rests on who broke the contract.

Did the child break the contract by their behaviour, or did the school break the contract by excluding the child from the trip?

We clearly do not have enough information to decide that one way or the other.

mynameistallulah

DVardysShadow wrote: »

This is not so clear cut as it looks in the first instance.

If the school has paid out, the money may not be refundable - and backtracking a little on what I said earlier, I am beginning to think that a level of gross misbehaviour from a pupil might be grounds not to let the student go on the holiday - even without a good behaviour clause.

But that misbehaviour would have to be fairly gross - such as threatening or attacking another pupil with a knife for example. And it would have to involve a judgement of the kind of gravity that it was not safe to take the pupil on the holiday.

In such a case, I think that a court might uphold cancelling the pupil's place and not refunding anything that the school could not recover. But I am very clear that without a clause, a school could not use withdrawing the pupil's place to merely punish some minor misdemeanour such as talking back to a teacher - and even with such a clause, I think the most that could be charged would be a nominal administration fee - if the school had paid out to a tour company and could not recover, I would expect the school to bear the cost as it was their choice to punish.

I agree with everything you have said, except that the clause would not necessarily need to be in the holiday contract. Most schools have behaviour policies, which would also detail consequences of very poor behaviour, and this would simply be an extension of that.

* Goes to look at said policy to see if cancellation of trips/ holidays is listed *

poet123

At the school my youngest attends it is standard to have the behaviour clause in the parental consent docs. Implicit in that and actually stated is that if the clause is breached the school will not be out of pocket for any expenses already incurred due to the child's breach of that behaviour clause.

How watertight it is debatable, but it is certainly not as clear cut as you (Halibut) are stating. It is similar to being refused boarding on a plane for being drunk or other misconduct, you would not get a refund for your flight, and you would have to pay to transfer and fly later.

I suspect it would depend on the severity of the issue and what knock on effects that might have.