Jury awards $68K to black student injured after white classmates wrapped rope around her neck

[DonViejo]

Source: The Hill


BY CHRIS MILLS RODRIGO - 11/02/18 10:53 AM EDT



A private school in Texas this week was ordered to pay $68,000 in damages to the family of a black student who said white classmates wrapped a rope around her neck and dragged her to the ground, according to The New York Times.

A jury in Travis County ordered the school pay $55,000 for the physical pain and mental anguish caused by the 2016 incident, $10,000 for disfigurement sustained and $3,000 for medical expenses. The family sought $5.3 million in damages, but the jury did not determine that the school was guilty of gross negligence.

The student's family sued the Waco, Texas, school after the girl, identified only as K.P. in court documents, said three white classmates who frequently bullied her put the rope around her neck on a sixth-grade field trip. Live Oak Classical School maintains that her injury was an accident.

“It looked like somebody ripped my daughter’s neck off and stitched it back together,” Sandy Rougely said in 2016, describing the injuries to her then 12-year-old daughter.

-snip-

Read more: https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/414506-school-ordered-to-pay-68000-to-black-girl-after-classmates-allegedly

[Cirque du So-What]

1. Judgment was too low IMO

That school should pay until it hurts them badly.

[dalton99a]

2. It's a pittance

[AJT]

10. It's Waco.

[cstanleytech]

16. The ones that should really be paying though are the other kids parents.

[Mickju]

20. Exactly!

This is appalling.

[trueblue2007]

27. the girl should have got MILLIONS.

[dalton99a]

3. "The school affirms the principles of Christianity"

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/01/us/waco-texas-school-rope-jury.html

[catbyte]

6. Sigh...

[IMG][/IMG]

[beachbum bob]

4. should have been 7 figures AND parents of the kids SUED TOO

if want to see this stuff end....make people pay. Not taxpayers but the people responsible and the organizations.

control would quickly come

[catrose]

5. PUT a rope around her neck? WRAPPED a rope around her neck?

They're lucky they weren't charged with attempted murder.

That poor child. I hope she has a new school.

[dalton99a]

7. She is being home-schooled

according to the NY Times

[cannabis_flower]

8. That's horrible..

I'm wondering why the parents of the students who did it were also held responsible.

I hope she knows to rub lanolin on that scar. It looks bad but rubbing lanolin on it helps it to fade faster. There is also something called covermark that she can use to cover it. I know because I have a sister that has a port wine birthmark and she used those products. Of course she shouldn't have to.

[Hotler]

19. It's Texas and the perpetrators are white.

fucking racist. Fucking kids learn that shit from their elders.

[unblock]

9. i hope they are able to sue the people who did this to her, and i hope they have insurance.

judgment against the school is one thing.
judgment against the perpetrators of this hate crime is another.

[AJT]

12. Hate Crime!?

They was just funnin'.

[ToxMarz]

13. If they are sixth graders probably not

[unblock]

14. Parents are legally responsible for such things.

[ToxMarz]

15. Not necessarily

If the parents encouraged it or sanctioned it, of course. But generally parent responsibility is from lack of basic supervision or control that allowed the action. They were on a school field trip and the duty of supervision was with the school. Which is probably why that is who they sued. I'm sure they sought legal advice. They could still sue the parents, but it is not a slam dunk case.

[unblock]

18. not a lawyer, but i'm not sure that's quite right.

let's say i have a dog that's properly fenced in, but, through no fault of my own, a bear (a rarity in my area) comes around and knocks enough of the fence down for my dog to escape. the dog then bites someone or otherwise causes damage.

i would think i'm liable even if i took all reasonable precautions. the lack of negligence on my part should keep me safe from any criminal charges, but i would think i would still have civil liability.


similarly, say i bring my menace of a child to a restaurant, but take reasonable precautions to keep him from running around and breaking things. hell, let's say i take *un-*reasonable measures, such as outright handcuffing him to the chair. but then a well-meaning server decides to show off his ninja lock-picking skillz and before i can stop it he's free and runs to a nearby table a spills coke on someone else's iphone.

i have a feeling i'm not getting out of paying for that iphone even if i took plenty of precautions.

[ToxMarz]

26. Yes but the point here is that the school was supervising the children

And the school was sued and lost, so a jury concluded they were negligent in supervising. The question is what responsibility did the parents have in that scenario to also be responsible for their supervision. If the kids were being supervised by their know alcoholic uncle, the parents may be liable as that is not appropriate supervision, but would entrusting them on a school sponsored and sanctioned field trip be negligent.

[unblock]

28. fair point, though that would be a question for a different trial

or several different trials. i don't believe separate civil trials necessarily need to be logically consistent, e.g., one trial could assign 75% of the liability to the school and a separate trial could assign 60% of the liability to the parents. i don't think it's a technical requirement that the responsibilities determined in separate trials add up to exactly 100%, though of course one would expect the second jury to come to somewhat similar conclusions based on the same facts presented.

certainly it can work out the other way, where each trial finds someone else to blame and the plaintiff gets nothing.


the article says the jury did not find gross negligence, so presumably they found ordinary negligence on the part of the school. that seems (not entirely clear) to be based on the school's argument that it was an accident, that the rope was set up in a way that kids letting go of it with someone standing in just the wrong place could lead to such an injury.

i'm not sure the jury found that the school's supervision wasn't good enough or whether the jury found that the school allowed the kids to play with hazardous playground equipment.

a different jury in a different trial could find the children negligent in letting go of the rope (if they buy the school's argument, which surely the defendants would use) or liable for wrapping it around her neck deliberately.

[femmedem]

11. That was no accident.

There's no way that rope would leave a mark like that going most of the way around her neck if it had suddenly come loose and accidentally hit her, as the school claims.

They deserved a larger penalty if for no other reason than they are lying and letting the kids who bullied her evade responsibility.

[More_Cowbell]

17. "The actual physical damage the girl sustained was small"

That's a quote from HER lawyer. Crazy. If I were her patents, I'd be telling my story everywhere until the school paid me to stop.

[rockfordfile]

21. That's attempted murder. I can't believe somebody isn't locked up.

[ck4829]

25. +1. It was, this wasn't a joke or a prank gone wrong.

[Judi Lynn]

22. What happened to this kind, trusting young lady is unforgivable.

That ferocious scar didn't happen by accident.

I'm hoping like crazy someone knowledgeable will take up her cause and help her and her parents to find actual justice for them against these cruel, sly opportunists who exploited the moment there was no one in authority to stop them.

You can tell by her who demeanor, readable instantly in her voice, she is shy, and timid, and not capable of fending off a group of bullies.

[Judi Lynn]

23. Slightly different version of what happened to this young lady, published earlier:

Justice for Black Girl Dragged By Her Neck With Rope

Target: Live Oak Classical School Board of Directors

Goal: Compensate family of young black student who was allegedly severely bullied, including being dragged to the ground with a rope around her neck.

A black family is suing after their daughter was allegedly brutally attacked by white students who had been bullying the 12-year-old girl for months without intervention from the school. According to reports, the student was attacked from behind by three boys who threw the rope around her neck and yanked her backwards, dragging her on the ground. The aftermath is a long, jagged scar across the girl’s throat.

Staff at the Live Oak Classical School have reportedly failed to intervene in the bullying, and the girl’s mother said that the bullying became worse after her daughter reported it to the administration. Even after this brutal and dangerous assault, the school appears to have dismissed it as an “accident.” For this failure to take action in the face of ongoing and escalating bullying and harassment, the Rougely family is suing the school for $3 million.

Failure to do anything to stop bullying is a serious problem in schools across the nation and have resulted in deaths from injuries and suicide. The problem is even worse for girls and children of color, whose complaints are often dismissed and the actions of their often white male bullies excused with a callous “boys will be boys.”

More:
https://forcechange.com/158391/justice-for-black-girl-dragged-by-her-neck-with-rope/



Images of the school:
https://tinyurl.com/y9kwdc4y

[ck4829]

24. Horrific

[Progressive Jones]

29. Were any beatings issued to the offenders? nt