Town prepares $5M settlement in student’s wrongful death suit
GREENWICH — The town of Greenwich is preparing a $5 million settlement to resolve a wrongful death lawsuit involving a former Greenwich High School student.
Bart Palosz was a 15year-old sophomore at GHS when he died by suicide in 2013.
Palosz was bullied by his peers and his family contends the school failed to follow its own anti-bullying policies, which may have saved Bart’s life.
Bart’s parents, Anna and Franciszek Palosz, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the town and the Greenwich Board of Education in state Superior Court in Stamford in 2015.
The Greenwich Board of Selectmen approved a $5 million settlement on Thursday, but it needs approval from both the Board of Estimate and Taxation and the Representative Town Meeting before it is finalized.
The town will pay $930,831.13 as part of the settlement and the remainder will be paid by the town’s insurance.
“The Board of Selectmen acknowledges this has been an incredibly difficult situation for the Palosz family,” the town said in a statement.
Stamford-based law firm Silver Golub & Teitell is representing the Palosz family. Attorney Jennifer Goldstein said there would be no comment until the settlement is finalized.
The case had been headed for a trial after working its way through the court system for years.
Multiple witnesses were prepared to be called as the legal negotiations stepped up over the past year. The lawyers for the Palosz family had planned to call some 20 “fact” witnesses, while the lawyers representing the town had listed over 30 people who were to testify in person, or through video. Multiple expert witnesses, from around the country, were scheduled to testify for both sides on juvenile psychology and school policies.
Bart’s parents, Anna and Frank, were to be called as witnesses, according to the joint trial management report submitted to the judge.
Over the past months, legal issues arose involving witnesses, som e of them underage at the time of Bart’s death, and how their privacy would be protected. Other conflicts over records, the selection of expert witnesses and evidence also took extensive
amounts of time.
The resolution of a number of procedural issues also delayed the case in the early phase of the litigation. The state Supreme Court rejected a petition by the town’s lawyers to review the case on the grounds of “sovereign immunity,” a legal concept that asserts that government employees or bodies cannot be sued over their
official acts.
The Palosz family, in court filings, said Bart was subjected to years of bullying at Western Middle School and Greenwich High School, and they said his suicide on his first day of classes as a sophomore at Greenwich High School was a result. Lawyers representing the town said the school staff was not at fault, and a
court filing in last year stated, “Western Middle School and Greenwich High School appropriately responded to any reported incidents of alleged ‘bullying’ of Bart Palosz.”
The lawsuit cited numerous instances in Bart’s school years where he was kicked, punched, harassed and subjected to “homophobic taunts.” A cell phone he used was smashed by a classmate, and his bicycle was damaged on another occasion, according to the suit. He once required emergency medical attention after he was shoved into a locker and sustained a cut on his head when he was an eighth grader in 2012, according to court records.
The legal team for the town maintained school personnel “took each incident seriously and did their best to help Bart,” the town’s court filing states. It went on to add, “In his eighth-grade year, there were even fewer reported incidents, and only one reported incident during his ninth-grade year.”
The family’s lawyers maintained Bart stopped reporting the bullying incidents, and they did not stop occurring.
Bartlomiej was born in Poland before his family won a residency lottery and immigrated to the United States, where he adopted the nickname Bart.
He was a Boy Scout, he had an interest in computer programming and his loved ones said he was gentle and kind.
If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline can be reached 24/7 at 800-273-8255.