Will the latest case of local councils being sued successfully for failing to provide proper education for special needs children in the House of Lords open the way 'for gold-digging actions brought on behalf of under-achieving children', as one law lord wondered?According to Lord Nicholls, when the Lords, reversing the Court of Appeal decision, found that four former pupils had the same right to seek compensation from education authorities as they would have from professionals, such as doctors, financial advisers, and no doubt, even lawyers, he did not anticipate a flood of cases tying up education authorities in expensive and protracted litigation.

He said: 'I am not persuaded by these fears.

I do not think they provide sufficient reason for treating work in the classroom as territory which the courts must not enter.'Jack Rabinowicz, a litigation partner at London firm Teacher Stern Selby, well-known for specialising in education law cases, is the solicitor who acted for two of the pupils in those House of Lords actions, known collectively as the Phelps case.

The authorities failed to diagnose dyslexia and were therefore found to have failed in their duty of care to children with special educational needs.As a result of the decisions in the four cases, three relating to pupils with dyslexia and one child who suffered from muscular dystrophy, he says: 'Teachers and educationalists will not be immune from the consequences when there is negligence, and as Lord Nicholls said, that does not apply only to special needs pupils, but to all educational issues.'But there is still a question mark over whether these cases will open the floodgates for pupils to sue education authorities.

The House of Lords' ruling still requires that any pupil wanting to claim compensation will have to show cause and effect.

For example, if a student failed every GCSE and had attended what was considered a 'failing' school, Mr Rabinowicz says: 'They would still have to show that all the other relevant factors had to be excluded -- that they were a hard-working student as opposed to a disaffected one.'The decision has made a difference in a wider sense -- it has changed the whole area of teaching and education because the House of Lords has effectively turned education into a consumer product.

As Mr Rabinowicz says: 'Education has become a product which you buy and consume, and if you are not satisfied with the outcome, then you challenge it.

As with any consumer product, you expect good value, and if you don't get that, you w ant compensation.

That change in the culture may be the result of education being used for political rather than purely educational purposes, with the emphasis on "education, education, education".'This change in culture has given rise to fears about the extension of compensation culture to cover education.

Those fears are not entirely unfounded.

Teacher Stern Selby has more than 60 cases which may go to court, and Mr Rabinowicz predicts that perhaps 500 more may have claims for compensation.

He says: 'This decision is a fundamental statement by the English courts that if mistakes do take place in the education system then teachers and local education authorities can be liable.'He adds: 'One of the concerns raised by the schools and the insurers in these cases is that it would open the floodgates -- but only time will tell.

What is still undecided is what the correct limitation period is to bring claims, whether it is three or six years, and it is also not entirely clear what exactly they can claim compensation for.

So it will take time before it is clear when and how you can sue and for what.'Another lawyer specialising in this area, David Ruebain, head of the education and disability law department at London firm David Levene & Co, agrees that the decision has made it easier to make a claim for compensation than before.

He says: 'Since the House of Lords case of E v Dorset & others in June 1995, the law has been swinging back and forth in a number of cases including before the European Court.

But the recent Phelps case is not as disastrous as the doom-mongers on the defendant side have predicted -- you still have to establish material negligence and material loss, and clearly not every instance will necessarily constitute negligence, and there are a number of hurdles to overcome, such as costs and legal aid.

But the case has meant that schools and colleges will now have to be more mindful of the quality of the education which is provided.'Mr Ruebain does not see education as just a consumer product, although he concedes that the political and social culture has altered drastically during the past 20 years, and he is seeing more cases coming to his firm as a result of that change.

He says: 'There is no longer a culture of people being passive recipients of education; there is now a culture of entitlement and of the providers of that education being held to account.'From the other perspective, if there is an increase in the number of claims for compensation and holding local education authorities to account, that will take money out of the education system.

Stephen Hocking, an associate at Beachcroft Wansbroughs who specialises in education law cases, says there has to be some balance.He predicts that 'no doubt there will be a lot of cases started because pupils will now be told that that is an option, but it is not certain that those cases will go all the way.

The House of Lords were quite sensible and restrictive in their ruling that there is no reason in principle that the authorities should be immune from being sued if there is bad teaching -- just how you identify bad teaching is going to be the difficult question.

I hope that the judges who have to apply that test will take account of the evidence from the local education authorities.

Just because schools do not turn out all grade A students does not mean that the students should get compensation.'He adds: 'Obviously, if there is sub-standard teaching, then that should be dealt with, but money paid out by local education authorities as compensation to students is m oney that is not available for improving education in other ways.'But litigation is not the only option.

Mr Rabinowicz says one of the cases which was set to go to trial before the Phelps case went to the House of Lords may go to alternative dispute resolution (ADR).

He says: 'This area is a whole new ballgame, and it has a certain affinity with the area of medical negligence where ADR is being used more and more.

With education cases, it can be used in some cases where that is appropriate.'The options are increasing to take account of the rise in cases in the last two decades, and the lawyers in this area do not see that trend changing.

Mr Rabinowicz adds: 'As a parent of school-age children, I hope that this case improves the education system rather than damages it; and as with the medical negligence cases, I hope that it encourages good teaching in the future, and that it ensures that other parents and children will not suffer in the same way.

That is what almost every client who comes in says that they want to achieve.'