A judge has approved a $350,000 settlement in a lawsuit filed against the Los Angeles Unified School District on behalf of a disabled boy who alleged he was verbally and physically abused by his preschool teacher in 2019 and that the principal did not take appropriate action.
The boy, now 8 years old, is identified only as K.D. in the Beverly Hills Superior Court lawsuit brought on his behalf by his mother. The child was enrolled at 54th Street Elementary School in South Los Angeles.
On Friday, Judge Edward Moreton Jr. approved the accord, which will leave the boy with just over $212,200 after deductions of $105,000 in attorneys’ fees and other expenses. The judge noted that the case presented difficult issues for the boy’s attorney.
“Plaintiff had to establish that the school was liable for the actions of a very experienced teacher, who had no history of harming students,” the judge wrote. “Also, plaintiff was claiming extensive (emotional distress) damages from a singular event, and it was very difficult to prove to Defendants that Plaintiff was in fact suffering from long-lasting trauma.”
Last November, Moreton trimmed the boy’s case, dismissing the causes of action for assault, battery and one of the civil rights violations claims, but allowing the case to proceed on the intentional infliction of emotional distress and a second civil rights violation allegation.
According to the suit filed in September 2020, teacher Roberta Brandt “was allowed to emotionally and physically torment K.D. because he could not speak up for himself and because Principal (Haywood) Thompson and LAUSD did nothing to protect him.”
K.D. was a 4-year-old preschool student at the start of the 2019-20 school year, according to the suit, which said he was eligible for special education services because he has a speech and language impairment.
Brandt was inexperienced with children with individualized education plans such as that provided to K.D., the suit states. In the five years including and preceding the 2019-2020 school year, Brandt had only three students with IEPs and admitted in interviews that she had no training with children with significant behavioral problems, the suit alleged.
Brandt said the boy’s behavior was a “significant challenge” for her and she was “overwhelmed” by his behavior, the suit alleged. She allegedly called the child’s mother three times, telling her to find K.D. a different school because he was having behavioral difficulties that Brandt could not handle.
Although Brandt had all her other students sleep inside during their naps, she forced K.D. to sleep unsupervised outside on the ground in the dirt, according to the suit.
In September 2019, Brandt took K.D. behind the classroom, stooped down to the boy’s level, put her hands on his shoulders and shook him so hard that his head flopped back and forth, the suit alleges. A crossing guard allegedly saw the teacher “violently shake” K.D. and told the child’s grandfather.
The grandfather removed K.D. from school for the day, notified the principal, spoke with the police and took his grandson to a hospital, according to the suit.
The suit alleges the boy “was badly injured and traumatized by Ms Brandt’s repeated shaking of him,” and his mother subsequently enrolled her son in another school out of concern for his safety.
The plaintiff claims that Brandt’s alleged abuse was motivated by K.D. being Black and having a disability. The teacher was not as violent with students who were not Black or disabled, according to the suit.
Thompson never spoke to Brandt about her alleged order to make the boy sleep outside on a dirty rug, the suit states. Prior to the 2019 shaking incident, the principal did not tell the boy’s parents or grandparents about the teacher’s alleged mistreatment of the child, according to the lawsuit.
In their court papers, attorneys for the LAUSD and Thompson stated that an administrative law judge concluded after a hearing that Brandt did not intend to harm the boy when she allegedly shook him.
K.D. had behavioral problems, including screaming, running around the classroom and pushing and hitting other students, the defense attorneys stated in their court papers.
“On one occasion, (K.D) was so disruptive during nap time that Brandt allowed him to nap outside her front door,” the defense attorneys’ court papers state.
But in their court papers, K.D.’s lawyers stated that the administrative law judge indeed found that Brandt abused the boy by shaking him.
Denial of responsibility! Vigour Times is an automatic aggregator of Global media. In each content, the hyperlink to the primary source is specified. All trademarks belong to their rightful owners, and all materials to their authors. For any complaint, please reach us at – [email protected]. We will take necessary action within 24 hours.
