Am i entitled to refund on school trip

halibut2209

mynameistallulah wrote: »

Based on what reasoning - any supporting precedent?

Contract law. The contract between OP/School and School/France are separate issues.

poet123

DVardysShadow wrote: »

I think this one would be far from watertight - it would involve the court in examining the application of the school policy, which would not be a good place for the school to be in. The school would have to justify that the application of the sanction was proportionate to the offence, that due process had been followed and that the application of the policy of the school was proportionate. And in justifying that the alleged offence of the child [by your analogy] actually jeopardized the safety and enjoyment of other participants

I would expect a court would not overrule the sanction applied by the school in terms of rescinding a place, but would award a return of all monies paid.

Suppose it (not in this case) was about a bullying incident and both the kids were going on the trip. The school could not allow the bully to go and they would be completely within their rights to refuse to take them. There are ay number of other scenarios which could apply here. The salient point is that the parent signs up to let the school apply their behaviour policy, and agrees to abide by it.

DVardysShadow

mynameistallulah wrote: »

But if the school wants the clause in a holiday contract, it would have to put it there explicitly and they would be on a very sticky wicket to argue that the behaviour policy provided a basis to cancel the pupil's place on the holiday without compensation.

Of course it would not - a school holiday is a school activity - the behaviour policy covers all school activities.

The behaviour policy covers all school activities I agree. And I expect a court would not strike down the application of a sanction. But I doubt that a court would uphold the policy to the point of not ordering that monies paid to date be returned if the sanction was applied for something irrelevant to the holiday.

Putting the matter into the big people's world, suppose a package holiday company put a clause in a booking form that anyone subsequently found guilty of an offence in a magistrate's court would be barred from the holiday without recompense. Do you expect that would be accepted as a fair clause?

mynameistallulah wrote: »

Do children/ parents really need to be told that the same behaviour standards apply on a school holiday as when on school premises?

This is irrelevant to the question under consideration. The issue has arisen from prior behaviour.

halibut2209

mynameistallulah wrote: »

So an employer is not innocent in deciding to dismiss an employee for gross conduct? An excellent example, yes?

And once again, I agree that the school are quite within their rights to not allow the child to go. That's NOT what this disagreement is about.

But that doesn't dismiss the employer/school from their responsibilities.

halibut2209

poet123 wrote: »

Suppose it (not in this case) was about a bullying incident and both the kids were going on the trip. The school could not allow the bully to go and they would be completely within their rights to refuse to take them. There are ay number of other scenarios which could apply here. The salient point is that the parent signs up to let the school apply their behaviour policy, and agrees to abide by it.

And the school would be quite entitled not to let the bully go. It doesn't mean that they aren't obligated to refund monies paid. Two separate issues.

mynameistallulah

halibut2209 wrote: »

Contract law. The contract between OP/School and School/France are separate issues.

Contract law will not see the innocent party put to a detriment. Although you seem unwilling to say the words, you have already agreed that the employee/ employer relationship is an excellent analogy, and in that situation the employer would not be put to a detriment i.e. they would not be expected to pay notice.

DVardysShadow wrote: »

The behaviour policy covers all school activities I agree. And I expect a court would not strike down the application of a sanction. But I doubt that a court would uphold the policy to the point of not ordering that monies paid to date be returned if the sanction was applied for something irrelevant to the holiday.

Putting the matter into the big people's world, suppose a package holiday company put a clause in a booking form that anyone subsequently found guilty of an offence in a magistrate's court would be barred from the holiday without recompense. Do you expect that would be accepted as a fair clause?


This is irrelevant to the question under consideration. The issue has arisen from prior behaviour.

The analogy you use is not relevant because the two things are entirely unrelated. The correct analogy has already been given, if a passenger misbehaves at an airport, the airline has every right to refuse boarding without refund - the two things are directly related.

DVardysShadow

mynameistallulah wrote: »

Based on what reasoning - any supporting precedent?

Contract law as mentioned by halibut. And proportionality for minor offences.

Suppose the school discipline policy states that handing homework in late is an offence. The court would rule that the sanction of losing £205 for a holiday was disproportionate.

Contract law is the major one, though. Argued carefully, contract law would be quite convincing up to a fairly severe level of offence by the pupil. There would be no benefit in allowing unrelated and or minor offences to allow the contract to be breached without compensation.

Most schools would see that being granted an arbitrary power to abrogate a contract for a holiday because of a minor or unrelated offence by a pupil would actually have the unintended consequence of throwing the concept of a cotract with a school for an educational holiday into total disrepute. With the consequence that parents would be reluctant to commit money to such holidays.

halibut2209

mynameistallulah wrote: »

Contract law will not see the innocent party put to a detriment. Although you seem unwilling to say the words, you have already agreed that the employee/ employer relationship is an excellent analogy, and in that situation the employer would not be put to a detriment i.e. they would not be expected to pay notice..

Please try and understand.

This is NOT about what happens in the future (notice etc), but is about settling things at the time the contract is ended. The employee still gets paid for the time he was at work, even if he was using that time to do whatever it was that got him fired. Likewise, the school still has to refund the money.

halibut2209

DVardysShadow wrote: »

Contract law as mentioned by halibut. And proportionality for minor offences.

Suppose the school discipline policy states that handing homework in late is an offence. The court would rule that the sanction of losing £205 for a holiday was disproportionate.

Contract law is the major one, though. Argued carefully, contract law would be quite convincing up to a fairly severe level of offence by the pupil. There would be no benefit in allowing unrelated and or minor offences to allow the contract to be breached without compensation.

Most schools would see that being granted an arbitrary power to abrogate a contract for a holiday because of a minor or unrelated offence by a pupil would actually have the unintended consequence of throwing the concept of a cotract with a school for an educational holiday into total disrepute. With the consequence that parents would be reluctant to commit money to such holidays.

Exactly.

What if you had 2 families.

Family 1 had paid the deposit, and was paying off £5 a week of the balance for a school trip.

Family 2 had paid the entire amount off immediately

The two children of the families get into a fight and are both banned from the trip. Each has paid a different amount.

Is it fair that they each lose different amounts of money?

halibut2209

OK, here's a serious question, and I don't know what the answer is.

If you were an employee of a company and were paying into the company pension, and then you got fired for gross misconduct, what happens to the money you paid into the pension?