Colonial Intermediate Unit cleared

A federal court dismissed a lawsuit against Colonial Intermediate Unit after finding it could not be held liable for a student’s sexual assault of a peer because the employees involved had no knowledge of his history of violent outbursts.

The parents of a 17-yearold girl sued the intermediate unit in 2018 claiming she was molested and forced to perform a sex act by the boy with whom she shared a seat on a van used to transport special needs students to and from Colonial Academy in Bushkill Township.

U.S. District Judge Joshua Wolson granted the intermediate unit’s request to decide the case in its favor without trial, finding that the parents had not shown that any of its employees acted with deliberate indifference to the danger to their daughter.

Attorney Michael D. Shaffer, who represented the parents, said he is looking at options to appeal the ruling. Shaffer said he disagrees that the intermediate unit could not have prevented the attack and that the boy had an extensive history of misconduct.

“He had incidents of violence throughout his tenure at the school,” Shaffer said. “A sexual assault is an act of violence.”

John E. Freund, an attorney for the intermediate unit, said he was pleased by the decision. Freund said that in addition to the employees having no knowledge of the boy’s history, the intermediate unit maintains “sincere doubts” the assault happened the way it was described.

Both the driver and the aide supervising the students in the van testified there was no way such an assault could have happened without being noticed.

According to the opinion, in December 2017, the aide permitted the girl to switch seats because she was bothered by the behavior of the student she was seated with. The girl rode the van for several days in her new seat without a problem before the boy, identified in court papers only by his initials, forced his hands into her clothes and forced her to perform oral sex.

In the days after the attack on the bus, the boy approached the girl and tried to coerce her to have sex with him, but she refused. The boy then shunned the girl and began to make fun of her, court papers say.

As a result of the humiliation, the girl suffered “a manic episode” about a week after the assault, court papers say, and tried to open the doors of a moving school bus. When the bus stopped, she ran away but was eventually taken home. The girl told school officials about the assault the following day. As a result of the trauma, she attempted suicide twice, court papers say.

In his Sept. 4 opinion, Wolson noted government agencies generally do not have an obligation to protect citizens from the actions of other citizens. The exception is that the government is responsible for protecting citizens from dangers it creates.