SCHOOL
HIT WITH $11 MILLION RULING
FOR
FAILURE TO PROTECT STUDENT FROM ATTACKS
A rural school district in upstate New York
has been hit with an $11.4 million judgment for failing to protect a high
school student who was beaten by three schoolmates minutes after she asked
an assistant principal for protection. The Genesee County jury found the
administrator had acted with reckless disregard for the student's safety.
The judgment in Shelby v. LeRoy Central School District is the latest of
several tort litigation losses nationally by school districts.
*****
Peter Page, The National Law Journal, 7/25/2002
- (link no longer active)
A rural school district in upstate New York
has been hit with an $11.4 million judgment for failing to protect a female
high school student who was beaten by three schoolmates minutes after she
asked an assistant principal for protection. The judgment is
the latest of several tort litigation losses nationally by school districts.
Crystal Shelby, now 22, suffered brain injuries
from a May 1995 beating by three girls in the hallway of Le Roy High School,
located about 25 miles from Rochester, N.Y.
"The lessons here for school districts are:
'Don't disregard a student who asks for help,' and 'You have to be effective
in your discipline,' '' said plaintiff's counsel Terry D. Smith of Smith,
Keller, Miner & O'Shea of Buffalo, N.Y.
"The girls who assaulted Crystal were three
hard cases who had been disciplined and suspended time and again.''
According to attorneys on both sides, the night before the assault Shelby
had an argument with the three girls, who explicitly threatened to attack
her the following day in school. The following morning Shelby told
assistant principal Neil O'Brien that she had been threatened but he took
no action and told the girl to proceed to her homeroom.
During the liability phase of the bifurcated
trial the jury found O'Brien had acted with reckless disregard for Shelby's
safety. The three girls attacked Shelby in the hallway, beating her
head with a padlock and slamming her headfirst into a wall.
She suffers hydrocephalus, a condition known in lay terms as water on the
brain and characterized by dangerous pooling of fluid in the cranium. She
has endured seven hospital stays and six brain surgeries to treat the condition,
according to Brian Mahoney, who represented Shelby along with Smith.
Shelby has two shunts in her cranium to drain fluid. She suffers persistent
cognitive difficulties.
Defense counsel Paul Riordan of Osborn, Reed
& Burke of Rochester, N.Y district's case was hamstrung when testimony
about the exchange of words the night before was excluded. Riordan declined
to detail the incident but said "fighting words'' were exchanged that would
have given the jury a different view of the case. He also contended that
Shelby did not tell O'Brien the reason for the threats. "Excluding
that testimony hurt our defense,'' he said. "Without the jury hearing what
was spoken the night before, the plaintiff looked like an innocent victim
and our theory was she instigated this. There is an issue of comparative
fault because the plaintiff did not fully portray what happened the night
before, so the assistant principal did not have a heightened sense of concern.''
Smith said that the three girls stated in pretrial hearings within months
of the assault that Shelby had made racially derogatory comments that inflamed
them.
Judge Kevin Dillon excluded the testimony on
the grounds it was prejudicial and had been given long ago, Smith said.
"The three girls could not even agree between themselves about what was
said and they lied about everything else,'' he said.
Riordan contended that hallway supervision
at the time of the assault was adequate, though he acknowledged that the
defense was undermined by the admission that two of three teachers who
should have been in the hall were not present. Witnesses testified that
at least 50 students crowded around the assault before a teacher arrived.
Smith said an early ruling that bifurcated the trial into separate liability
and award phases complicated the plaintiff's case. "The first jury got
no information about the severity of her injuries and the second jury got
no information about the basis of liability,'' he said.
Riordan said that Shelby is an A student at
a community college and said the district will appeal the judgment as disproportionately
large for her disability. Shelby v Le Roy Central School District, Case
No. 45151 (Genesee Co., N.Y., Sup. Ct.).
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