Gardenhire blasts school board for ‘continual cover-up’
The Hamilton County School Board is again drawing the ire of State Sen. Todd Gardenhire for what he calls the “continual cover-up” of information regarding the 2015 Ooltewah High School rape case.
A $750,000 settlement with one of four victims in the case was revealed in May, but the amount of a second settlement has not been disclosed.
“I think the public has the right to know what it costs the taxpayers, what a mistake that the department of education made has cost the taxpayers,” he said. “How much did their negligence cost taxpayers?”
Details about the $750,000 settlement with victim “John Doe” were emailed to school board members by school board attorney Scott Bennett in May. Doe was one of the four then-minors who said older Ooltewah High School classmates attacked them with pool cues during a December 2015 trip to Gatlinburg, Tennessee, for a basketball tournament. He and another victim, “Richard Roe,” filed
civil lawsuits against the district in Chattanooga’s U.S. District Court in 2016, and both settled before trial.
But their settlements were supposedly sealed, leaving school board members and the public in the dark about the actual amount.
Gardenhire blasted the district and its insurer, the Tennessee Risk Management Trust, in December for not disclosing the amounts.
The state’s Open Records Counsel got involved earlier this year, which ultimately influenced the disclosure of Doe’s settlement. However, Roe’s was never released and remains sealed by the Hamilton County Circuit Court.
The nondisclosure of Roe’s settlement was outlined in a January letter from attorney Charles Purcell to Tennessee Risk Management Trust President John Evans.
“As Roe was a minor, any settlement of his case had to be approved by the presiding judge,” the letter reads. “The plaintiffs submitted the settlement documents to the presiding Judge, who was Judge L. Marie Williams. At the hearing, the Judge agreed to the settlement terms and placed the entirety of the file, inclusive of the settlement terms, under seal.”
A motion would have to be filed and heard by a judge to unseal the case. No such motions have been filed, according to the Hamilton County Circuit Court clerk.
In February, Lee Pope, with the Open Records Counsel, sent top trust officials a letter saying that out-of-court monetary settlements made by board insurers need to be disclosed to the public under Tennessee’s open government laws. Pope said the trust is “most likely” a governmental entity or “functional equivalent of a government entity.”
After Pope’s letter, Bennett said that it was his understanding “that Mr. Purcell was able to use the attorney general’s position to persuade the Doe attorney to waive the confidentiality agreement.”
But Doe’s Washington, D.C., attorney, Monica Beck of the Fierberg National Law Group, refuted that statement.
“Hamilton County Schools has tried to keep this matter out of the public eye and avoid responsibility for the harm that John Doe suffered. Contrary to public statements made by the school and board attorney Scott Bennett, our client did not request that the settlement agreement be maintained in confidence, and defense attorney Charles Purcell did not ‘persuade’ our client to waive confidentiality or do any other thing,” Beck said in an email in May.
Gardenhire did not say whether he planned on filing a motion to challenge the court order in the Roe case. He did say that the victim’s identify and injuries should not be made public but that he would like to see the settlement amount released.
The district is not directly footing the bill; it is being paid by the insurer. Bennett previously said the board had no say in voting on John Doe’s settlement or any knowledge about the amount. That isn’t true, Gardenhire said. The school board would have had to come to a decision on whether or not it should have the cases handled by the trust, he added. That vote should have taken place during a public meeting.
Bennett was unable to be reached for comment for this story. Purcell declined to comment.
Contact Meghan Mangrum at mmangrum@timesfreepress.com or 423757-6592. Follow her on Twitter @memangrum.