Recently, we were fortunate to recover $450,000 at a mediation for a teen girl from her school district, after she was sexually assaulted off school grounds.
Normally, it is extremely difficult to recover against a school district in negligence when the incidents occur either during non-school hours, or off-school grounds, both of which were true in this case. See, e.g., "School Has No Duty to Notify Parents of Danger to Child, Says NY Court."
Why This Case Was Different
The facts of this case, however, were somewhat unique, and afforded a strong opportunity to hold the school district responsible.
In this instance, the school district's bus driver abandoned the infant, who had diminished intellectual capacity, and was in a specialized BOCES program, in front of her school – but unbeknownst to the infant’s mother, school had been canceled on account of snow, and no personnel from the school was there to supervise or care for the infant.
What Happened Next
The infant, who had no cell phone of her own, borrowed a stranger’s phone, and took a public bus to meet up with a fellow student of hers from school. That “friend” detained the infant against her will at a few different apartments until the following afternoon, and forced her to have unprotected sex.
The Challenges We Faced in Prosecuting the Case
To be sure, there were numerous challenges in prosecuting this action, including the delays in obtaining meaningful records from the school district that were caused by COVID-19, and the fact that the infant had a long history of voluntarily having sex with this particular boy (and others), and further parsing out what the long-term effects on her were from this incident, relative to her other underlying issues, and the fact that this case needed to be brought in a very defense-friendly venue, among the various counties of New York.
In the end, our clients were extremely pleased with the result, and we are proud to call them friends of the firm.
