Florida school district blamed third-graders who were molested
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — For a dozen years, the Palm Beach County School District insisted that four third-grade girls bore the responsibility for allowing their teacher to molest them in 2005.
In court documents, the district said the children were old enough to know better than to listen to their teacher when he told them to fondle him.
That defense, made in response to a lawsuit from the girls' families, had at least two Palm Beach County School Board members expressing outrage Wednesday.
"I don't think a child can ever consent to being sexually abused," said School Board member Frank Barbieri, whose district includes Coral Sunset Elementary west of Boca, where the molestations took place. "The School Board never authorized such a defense."
School Board member Erica Whitfield said she was told by district officials that the defense was a mistake.
The contention that the victims were responsible "is not how I personally feel and I don't think that's how the board feels," she said.
It took 12 years for the district to decide whether it bore any responsibility in the child abuse case involving Blake Sinrod, a third-grade teacher at Coral Sunset Elementary. He pleaded guilty to molesting two of the children in 2006.
The district is now poised to pay $3.6 million to settle the lawsuit.
The defense was drafted by an outside law firm, not by district staff or School Board members, said Dale Friedman, an attorney with the Hollywood firm Conroy Simberg, which has worked on the case since 2006.
The defense centered on the contention the children were "old enough to appreciate the consequences of their actions," the court documents stated.
That line of defense has been included since the lawsuit was first filed, Friedman said.
"We have never blamed these girls or given the appearance of holding the girls responsible for what their teacher did," she said.
She said the defense is called "comparative negligence," and it's used in court filings before all the facts are known.
In February, after another brief in the case was filed, the school district hired a forensic psychologist to examine the victims. He concluded the former students, who are now adults, were telling the truth, Friedman said.
She said the lawyers would have recommended withdrawing this particular defense had the case gone to trial.
The settlement is one of the school district's largest.
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= new reply since forum marked as read
There are some able-bodied people freely walking around drafting arguments like this that have some kind of serious illness in their heads and souls.
