SANTA MONICA (CNS) – A jury has awarded $4.43 million to a now-teenage girl who alleges she was bullied and sexually abused by an older female pupil while she was a special needs kindergarten student at a Los Angeles Unified charter school in 2015-16.
The Santa Monica Superior Court panel reached its verdict Friday in the trial of the civil suit brought on behalf of the plaintiff, who is identified only as A.J. Doe and is now 15 years old.
The girl attended Westwood Charter Elementary School in West Los Angeles. Her suit brought in November 2017 alleged negligent supervision of school premises and violation of specific codes and statutes. She said she was 5 years old at the time and that her alleged assailant was 10 years old and in the fifth grade when the abuses occurred from October 2015 to March 2016.
“The crux of this case is that defendants first and foremost had a duty to protect plaintiff on school premises during school hours and their failure to do so caused her harm,” the plaintiff’s attorneys stated in court papers.
Doe was born prematurely, spent three months in the NICU and was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, according to her attorney’s court papers, which also state that the girl’s alleged assailant was large and intimidating in size compared to the petite plaintiff and came from a “highly dysfunctional family” in which her father abused her mother.
But in their pleadings, LAUSD attorneys said the girl’s claims were exaggerated.
“This action arises out of a one-time, alleged bullying incident that occurred in the girl’s bathroom at Westwood Charter Elementary School that has inexplicably been transformed into a case of alleged sexual abuse, sexual harassment and grooming,” the district’s lawyers argued.
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