School pays for lost Pokémon cards

A pupil in the United States has won a compensation claim against his school - after his Pokémon cards were confiscated then lost.

Rudy Donithan-Treat, an 11-year-old pupil at a middle school in Oakley, California, has been awarded $1,500 after his confiscated cards were lost.

Collecting and trading Pokémon cards - with their different monster characters - is a current craze in schools in the United States and the United Kingdom.

But there have been claims that children's enthusiasm for the cards sometimes spills over into playground arguments - and Rudy Donithan-Treat's principal said she had been confiscating cards on "a daily basis".

There have also been problems in schools in the United Kingdom with pupils playing with cards in lessons.

But when the boy's cards were confiscated and then could not be found, Rudy sued the school for $5,000 in a small claims court.

The court ruled in favour of the boy, saying that once his property had been taken away it was the responsibility of the school to keep it safely until it was returned.

After the verdict, the boy said that with the $1,500 he would "be able to get more Pokémon cards".