WEST HARTFORD–The Board of Education in West Hartford is facing a second lawsuit regarding sexual assaults that occurred while at school.
In the fall of 2013, a 13-year-old autistic student at King Philip Middle School was sodomized by a student who had been bullying him, according to the complaint which refers to the victim as Child Doe and the bully as John Smith.
John Smith is said to have first bullied Child Doe on October 17, 2013 when he pulled down his pants and “invaded his personal space.” After that, Child Doe’s parents met with the school principal who is said to have promised to keep the two children separated to protect Child Doe.
However, despite the safety plan that was supposed to be put into place, John Smith and Child Doe were placed in the same gym class, where they both ended up in an unsupervised boy’s locker room for weeks. The lawsuit states that John Smith repeatedly attempted to sodomize Child Doe over his pants while in the locker room, and on November 8 he succeeded.
Besides being previously aware of the sexual bullying that John Smith is said to have committed against Child Doe, the lawsuit said the school was also aware that during the 2012-2013 school year John Smith had bullied another autistic student by pulling down his pants, and he also punched that student on one or more occasions.
The lawsuit claims that the school was negligent by not keeping the children apart despite the history between them, as well as John Smith’s previous history with bullying.
In addition, the lawsuit says that West Hartford Board of Education should have been more cognizant of bullying due to another lawsuit that was filed against the district after a middle school student at Sedgwick Middle School was repeatedly sexually assaulted by another student in an unsupervised boy’s locker room. The lawsuit states that there wasn’t enough security put in place to prevent these incidents from occurring again.
Further, another count in the lawsuit alleges that the school and Board of Education attempted to cover up the negligence after the King Philip sexual assault occurred and failed to provide an explanation or any information about the incident to Child Doe’s parents.
A third count charges the district with public nuisance for creating an environment and putting John Smith in a position to bully and sexually assault other students.
The fourth count says the Board of Education breached the fiduciary duty to protect and look out for Child Doe. Schools are entrusted to educate and protect students, but the parties “allowed and/or permitted” the incident to continue to occur.
Besides emotional and physical injuries, the family claims that due to this incident they’ve incurred medical bills.
The lawsuit says it seeks to force the school district to institute adult supervision in all West Hartford locker rooms, fire any administrator or teacher who did not prevent Child Doe from being sodomized after previously reported bullying, and to require the schools to investigate and notify parents of any incidents of bullying.
The parents and family seek money, punitive and any other damages deemed appropriate.
