Family reaches $9.1M deal in bullying case

In June 2017, Dianne Grossman, her husband and their daughter met with Copeland Middle School officials. The school officials suggested that 12-year-old Mallory should go home for the day because she was “not safe” there, a lawsuit says.

For months, Grossman says she had been trying to get help from school officials for her daughter, who had been bullied throughout the school year. But even after making multiple complaints, officials at the New Jersey middle school failed to offer solutions or heed Grossman’s pleas about the bullying, she alleged in the lawsuit.

Hours after the June meeting, Mallory died by suicide at home.

Her death sparked national attention as her parents in 2018 filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the Rockaway Township School District and administrators, alleging that they had failed to prevent and stop the bullying Mallory experienced. The Grossmans created the Mallory’s Army Foundation to bring awareness to bullying, and New Jersey strengthened its anti-bullying measures with a 2022 law named after the preteen.

This week, more than six years after Mallory’s death, her parents reached a $9.1 million settlement with the school district - the largest ever paid in a bullying case in the United States, according to Bruce Nagel, the family’s attorney.

Grossman wrote in a statement that she and her husband were “satisfied with the settlement,” adding that they were “ready to put this part behind us & move forward, continuing to lend our voice to the epidemic that is stealing our children’s future.”