In a news story that came out on February 12, the West Valley School District was sued for negligence in connection with their hiring and retaining a high school basketball coach who had previously been convicted of sex-related offenses. The school district's public response was predictable: they denied that anything untoward happened at the school or in connection with the scope of the coach's employment within the school.

The question is, what is significant about the school district's response?

The answer is, by arguing that nothing happened at the school, and that anything else that occurred inherently had nothing to do with the school, the district is trying to sever the causal connection between the school's hiring and retention of this coach and the incident where the plaintiff was injured.

If the school can make this argument successfully, it will certainly make the plaintiff's job of proving their school negligence case far more difficult.

Jonathan Cooper
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Non-Compete, Trade Secret and School Negligence Lawyer
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