Are her parents permanently absent, or were they just unable to make it to see the principal this time? Ask the bully's parents how they'd feel if all the kids s/he targeted counter sued for all the physical and mental harm caused, and see if they're still willing to go ahead with the lawsuit.

Those dumbass parents don't realize how lucky they are that their child is alive despite having a history of bullying other kids, because especially in today's climate, there's always a psychopath that shows up to school with a weapon to put an end to bullying, and s/he has a chance to learn from his/her behavior. As for the school, they should've recommended the bully for expulsion instead of your god-daughter, given that s/he has a history of bullying others with violence included and your god-daughter (I assume) was simply standing up for herself, but I guess that zero tolerance crap only applies to people that refuse to take shit from a bully, and not the people actually doing the bullying.

Typical school bullshit

To the hospital?!?!? I fucked up two bullies in school and no one went to the hospital. What the hell did your god-daughter do?

You are *not* the legal guardian of the child unless the court appoints/awards you custody. If you are the legal guardian, then I'd start worrying. Godparents is usually just a title for presenting the child at Catholic baptism and takes responsibility of religious education, and MAYBE listed as the requested family to take in a child per the parent's wishes if the child is orphaned. If you didn't have a court assign you responsibility, they can't do anything to you. I sent a boy to the hospital because he jumped on my back while I surfaced in the school pool. I was doing endurance testing for how far in feet I could swim under water for a better grade. Dimwit landed on me, drug me under, and bear hugged me under water right as I was trying to breathe, so I instantly took water in my lungs and squirmed and flailed in obvious distress! I spin around and tried to put my foot on his thigh to push away. No difference to him. Did I mention I had school issued swim flippers on, with metal ribs along the foot and extending past the toes? I found some soft fleshy squishy part of his body and started digging my flippers' tines as deep and as hard as I could until he let go! Right into the Slim Jim and 2 cherries I shredded his swim trunks, and he needed stitches on *other* parts. He screamed for me to be suspended because I hurt him while he stood there with his ripped trunks. He was told what a fight or flight instinct is, HE is being suspended, and may be charged with attempted homicide. No one suspended/expelled me, no suing. His own damn fault. If I drowned in the pool by his hand, well... getting his entire lap shredded would be the least of his problems. And I dare say once that story got around, I never got harassed again. Or a date!

Good for her. I sent one to the hospital myself when I was 8. I would have sent him to the morgue, had I not been stopped.

Get a good lawyer and sue the school for non protection of child to the point of forced self defense

Pit the school against the bully's parents, say that if there is a lawsuit the school will be implicated as complacent to the bullying that provoked this, even if nothing comes of the lawsuit their reputation will sink because of this. Also, run to grab every document the school has about the bullying to prevent them from covering it up. Finally, buckle up, lawyers are assholes in court, they'll do nasty stuff, like saying you didn't raise her right and she's violent because of that. Good luck.

well the bully's parents couldn't really sue you as you are not the actual parent, also good on that girl for beating the living shit out of the bully

Sadly, she'll be judged based on her actions and not the bully's, even though morally she may have been in the right. In my workplace there's a girl who's already gotten someone wrongfully fired, is lazy and bad at her job and is generally disliked by most of the department. I called her out on it recently, and I am in more trouble 'for my attitude' than she is for not doing her job. Whatever I say to my managers in my defense, they will fire back with how I should've handled it better/told her manager etc and this god-daughter will be treated the same. She was still violent and could've handled it better and that's something that on paper is so hard to argue.