The Reckoning Has Come for K-12 Sex Abuse, and You the Taxpayer Are on the Hook
The teenage female athletes at California’s Pomona High School said they felt special when a handful of coaches there took them under their wing, spending more time with them than others, providing extra encouragement, sharing personal stories and, sometimes, seemingly harmless flirtatious talk.
One track team member was amazed at a Nevada meet when she saw the coaches drinking, smoking marijuana, and sharing the party scene with teammates. But that attention turned to tragedy at a subsequent meet in Las Vegas when a coach brought the 16-year-old to his hotel room, plied her with alcohol, and, she says, raped her.
She mentioned the assault to administrators at the time and the principal assured her the matter would be handled. Instead, the coach kept his job and she endured so much ridicule she wound up leaving California.
Earlier in RCI: Forbidden Fruit and the Classroom: The Huge Sex-Abuse Scandal That Educators Scandalously Suppress
Decades after the 1997 incident, her tragedy turned to triumph when a Los Angeles jury awarded her $35 million for pain and suffering in a civil trial this January – made possible when the California legislature in 2020 opened a three-year window in which adults could bring litigation for sexual abuse they suffered as children.
And that’s not the only penalty the Pomona Unified School District taxpayers and insurers face from those reckless 1990s: Seven other former students have alleged abuse by the coaches, leading to three other lawsuits that have been settled privately and a fifth that remains active.
The long timeline from the incidents to settlement or trial, and the thumping amounts the Pomona Unified School District was hit with, reflect a new willingness to acknowledge and punish sexual predators. In the wake of the #MeToo movement and infamous cases such as those involving Catholic priests, Hollywood, and top-tier sports, momentum is building for what might comprise the biggest group of victims in sexual misconduct scandals: K-12 students victimized by teachers and other school employees.
A review of insurance industry reports, legal blogs, and media accounts by RealClearInvestigations turned up $1.2 billion in settlements for school districts in the last decade. And there are clear indications that the pace and amount of legal liability has been rising, along with the impact that has for taxpayers and schools.
In 2021, for example, the insurance entity United Educators reported nine K-12 sexual misconduct settlements of a million dollars or more in seven states, totaling $38.6 million. Those figures rose to a dozen in 2022, totaling $233.3 million, before exploding last year. In 2023, UE reported on 19 such K-12 settlements that amounted to more than $325 million. Only one of those cases – a $50 million settlement against the now defunct Miracle Meadows School in West Virginia – involved a private school.
As states grapple with limitations on litigation against government entities, and in some cases open new windows for plaintiffs to sue, more victims are coming forward and school districts and insurers are scrambling to find the money juries and judges are awarding. Just how much all this may cost is unclear, because only cases that go to trial are a matter of public record, and usually it is only the big settlements or awards like Pomona Unified School District’s that draw attention. Scores of other lawsuits are being settled for smaller amounts or are kept private through agreement between the parties….
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