Former student sues CUSD after teacher gets prison time
CHICO >> A former student in the Chico Unified School District has filed a lawsuit against the district, alleging years of childhood sexual assault and abuse by her former teacher at Bidwell Junior High School that the district was negligent for by employing the teacher and failing to protect the student.
The former teacher, Jennifer Lynn Smith, 50, was sentenced to five years in state prison last week for sexually abusing the former student. Smith had previously pleaded no contest to sexual abuse charges — two of the counts related to crimes committed when the victim was under 16, and two related to crimes committed when the victim was under 18.
The lawsuit, filed in the Butte County Superior Court by the student, referred to as Jane Doe to protect her identity, alleged Smith began sexually assaulting, molesting and abusing her beginning in 2009 when the student was 13 and an eighth-grader in Smith’s Spanish class at Bidwell Junior High. The abuse continued years after when the student attended Pleasant Valley High School.
Smith began “grooming” the student in 2009 by manipulating Jane Doe’s emotions to ultimately sexually abuse her, the lawsuit claimed, and used her position of authority and trust to take advantage of Jane Doe.
The student spent the night at Smith’s home, where Smith’s husband and children also lived, and Smith gave the student alcohol and marijuana while molesting her, according to the lawsuit. Smith continued to abuse her, continuing after the student moved in with Smith and Smith’s family when she was 16. On weekends, Smith didn’t allow the student to leave home and made her consume alcohol “until she was barely conscious,” the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit also described a pattern of Smith controlling, harassing and manipulating the student emotionally, making her feel trapped.
Jane Doe is being represented by Mary Alexander & Associates, P.C., a San Francisco-based personal injury law firm.
“This teacher completely violated the trust of a young teenage girl who was vulnerable and in need of real help in her life,” attorney Mary A lexan - der said in a press release. “How could these schools employ a teacher who took a student home to live with her only so she could have total power to abuse, assault and manipulate her at all times?”
The victim also asserted in the complaint that Smith previously had students live with her, or at minimum, had inappropriate relations with students, and people who were either employed by or “agents” of CUSD, including at Bidwell Junior High and Pleasant Valley High, knew about Smith’s relations with students.
At last week’s sentencing hearing, the former student addressed the court, describing the years of abuse and the emotional pain she still suffers from as a result of Smith’s actions, according to the Butte County District Attorney’s Office. Also present in the court room was another alleged victim who said Smith attempted to groom her for sexual abuse years before Smith met Jane Doe as a student.
The lawsuit alleges CUSD “had an affirmative duty to protect its students,” including Jane Doe, but failed to do so.
CUSD “had an affirmative and mandatory duty to protect children from the foreseeable risk of harm from teachers, aides, and/or school employees,” such as Smith, the lawsuit states.
It claims the school district “lacked prudent safeguards” in its hiring and supervisory policies for employees, because they did not provide adequate protection for students.
The lawsuit also asserts the school district should have known that Smith was “unfit to be employed as a teacher” prior to the 2009-10 school year, when Jane Doe was a student in Smith’s Spanish class.
“Defendants knew and had reason to know that Smith could not be trusted to behave appropriately around students and that she posed a reasonably foreseeable risk of harm to students,” the lawsuit states. “Defendants knew and should have known of Smith’s prior and continuing pedophiliac tendencies and propensities to engage in inappropriate relations with, molest, harass, abuse, and/or assault students.
“Had defendants properly investigated, supervised, trained, and monitored Smith’s conduct and actions as an employee at Bidwell Junior High School, they would have discovered that she was unfit for her position of employment by defendants. By failing to adequately supervise, monitor, or investigate, defendants allowed Smith to continue, unhindered, with her predatory conduct directed toward students, including plaintiff.”
The general allegations section of the lawsuit states Jane Doe “has incurred economic and noneconomic damages and continues to incur these damages, the full nature and extent of which are not yet known,” as a result of Smith’s abuse.
The damages Jane Doe is seeking in the lawsuit include: past and future medical, psychotherapy, and related expenses; physical and mental pain and suffering and emotional distress in a sum to be proven at the time of trial; past loss wages and past earning capacity and/or future lost wages and loss of earning capacity.
In a statement provided by a CUSD spokesperson, the school district said it has yet to be formally served with the lawsuit. CUSD said attorney John Kelley will be handling the lawsuit on the school district’s behalf.
“The Chico Unified School District understands there are many questions by those in the community and the press about the criminal conviction of former teacher Jennifer Smith and the recent announcement of a civil lawsuit by a former student,” the statement said. “However, to date, the school district has not been formally served with the civil lawsuit.
“The district is prohibited from commenting on litigation matters. This is especially true of a case that raises significant privacy rights of both Ms. Jennifer Smith and the former student. The district is committed to allowing the litigation process to proceed in a fair and equable manner.
“Civil lawsuits can take months, sometimes years, for all the facts to be learned and a conclusion reached. Attorney John Kelley will be handling the lawsuit on behalf of the Chico Unified School District and will advise as to when more about these tragic allegations can be made public. In the meantime, the district asks for your patience in allowing litigation to unfold.”