..
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7/25/2002 - (link no longer active)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.).
