Students often get blame in sex cases

S. Fla. schools use legal tactic

Despite denying it, Broward and Miami-Dade school districts both have blamed schoolchildren for their own sexual abuse.

The Sun Sentinel this week uncovered lawsuits in which the districts claimed children — ages 8 to 14 — were wholly or partly responsible for what had happened to them.

The discovery came a week after Palm Beach County Schools came under fire for the same practice, after reports in the Sun Sentinel.

In at least five sexual abuse lawsuits, involving children as young as 6, Palm Beach County Schools said students’ roles in their own abuse should limit how much money the district had to pay the students and their families.

One of those cases involved four third-graders molested by teacher Blake Sinrod in 2005. Responding to the lawsuit in court documents, the district argued that the students were “careless and negligent” and “old enough to appreciate the conse-

quences of their actions.”

Broward and Miami-Dade school districts told the Sun Sentinel this month that they did not use the same tactic in sexual abuse lawsuits, but court records prove otherwise. The districts blamed the victims for negligence in at least eight cases:

A 13-year-old student at William Dandy Middle in Fort Lauderdale who claimed she was sexually assaulted in May 2013 by a student on a school bus. The district paid the student $10,000, according to court records.

A 14-year-old student at Parkway Middle in Fort Lauderdale who said two students sexually battered her in November 2013 while she was walking to a restroom. The case was settled for $10,000, Broward Schools General Counsel Barbara Myrick said.

A 13-year-old boy at Lauderhill Middle who had a sexual relationship with teacher Kristen Sullivan from 2009 to 2010. The case was closed in 2014 with no settlement.

Two 14-year-old girls at Miami Springs Middle who had a sexual relationship with physical education teacher Carlos Usatorres in 2010. One case was settled for $185,000, the other for $200,000, according to court records.

An 8-year-old girl who claimed she was fondled in February 2015 by another student while underneath a table in a classroom at Campbell Drive K-8 Center in Homestead. The case is still open.

An 8-year-old attending Robert Russa Moten Elementary in Miami who said a 10-year-old sexually assaulted her in March 2012 in a bathroom. That case also remains open.

A 9-year-old fourthgrader enrolled in a program for students with emotional behavior disabilities at Benjamin Franklin K-8 Center in North Miami. The student said a 12-year-old boy sexually harassed him and fondled him in a restroom and at recess in 2012. The case was settled for $150,000.

In most of those cases, the districts asserted that the students were “negligent” or “culpable.” Miami-Dade in one case said the student or her mother voluntary exposed the student to danger.

Myrick, the general counsel for Broward schools, said on Oct. 11 that her district does not use the defense in child sex abuse cases. After reviewing cases provided by the Sun Sentinel this week, she said she had not been aware that outside lawyers were using it in some cases.

The district has a contract with Manatee County-based Johns Eastern Co. to handle all liability claims in the district, and the company hires lawyers to handle the cases, Myrick said. She said her office does not review the cases. She plans to ask Johns Eastern officials why they use the defense.

“I think this has brought to light something we need to address,” she said.

Officials from Johns Eastern did not respond to a request for comment Friday.

Myrick said she’s especially uncomfortable with the defense being used in cases such as the one at Lauderhill Middle, where a teacher sexually abused a child.

“I would never blame a child for any level of abuse, because of the power difference between a teacher and children,” she said.

School officials in MiamiDade also denied they used the negligence defense.

“Our legal office is unaware of any sex abuse lawsuit (involving minors) where our district has resorted to such a defense,” the district wrote in an email to the Sun Sentinel on Oct. 12.

Asked this week about five cases in which the defense was used, the district stuck by its position.

The district said in a prepared statement that it had never argued “before any tribunal, relied upon, or resorted to any defense” claiming children’s behavior contributed to their own sexual assault.

The defense strategy is known in legal circles as “comparative negligence,” which contends that the person filing the suit shares some level of responsibility.

Attorney Dale Friedman, who has used the tactic to defend Palm Beach County cases, said the purpose is to reduce the amount of money the district has to pay — not to blame the victims. The victim’s role may include not reporting an incident quickly enough or failing to attend counseling, Friedman said.

Still, Palm Beach County School Board members were outraged to find that the district had used a defense pointing fingers at the victims. They pledged Wednesday to stop using it.

Some board members acknowledged that they had not reviewed the court documents themselves, even though the district’s legal department reports directly to the school board.

“I was shocked and dismayed and heartbroken to learn that we were using this defense,” board member Marcia Andrews said Wednesday, the night the board approved a $3.58 million settlement with the women abused by Sinrod a dozen years ago. “It blames the victim and we never ever blame the children. I will be paying close attention to make sure we are never put in this situation again.”

Miami-Dade School Board Chairman Larry Feldman could not be reached for comment this week. Vice Chairwoman Marta Perez referred questions to School Board Attorney Walter Harvey, who declined to be interviewed.

Broward School Board member Nora Rupert said she hopes Myrick, the district’s general counsel, will provide more oversight to outside attorneys who defend abuse cases.

“I’m not really into blaming a victim, so I would hope we wouldn’t use that defense,” Rupert said.

Myrick said the district’s lawyers used “very generic” language about negligence, compared with what she considered more egregious language in Palm Beach County Schools. The issue is raised in court documents early in a case — before all the facts are known — to ensure that the district can use the defense later if it finds that a victim contributed to the situation, she said.

In one of the Broward cases reviewed by the Sun Sentinel, the district argued: “Plaintiff was negligent and/ or culpable, which was the cause of Plaintiff’s alleged loss and damages.”

Another time, the district said: “The Plaintiff … was herself negligent and said negligence acts to bar or proportionately reduce any recovery by Plantiffs in this case.”

The Miami-Dade district argued that one student “realized and appreciated the possibility of injury as a result of the danger.”

Another case blamed the student more directly, saying: “Plaintiff was negligent and/ or culpable, which was the cause of Plaintiff’s alleged loss and damages.”

Palm Beach County’s defense typically branded the students as “careless” and said they were old enough to know better, even at ages as young as 6.

Miami lawyer Gregg Schwartz, who represents one of the students suing Miami-Dade schools, questions why school districts choose to use any victim-blaming defense on children, regardless of how it’s worded.

“You can’t argue it to a jury. I would think most reasonable people would say you can’t blame children who were abused,” he said.