Judge OKs suit against Oak Ridge teacher
A federal judge has ruled that the guardian of a Conroe ISD high school student may proceed with a lawsuit against the boy’s former science teacher, who pleaded guilty this month to sexually assaulting him and who, the suit says, also supplied him prescription drugs that prompted a lengthy hospital stay.
Prior to the assault, the teenager endured an extremely difficult childhood, according to the suit. His father abandoned him as a child and his mother was murdered.
The former Oak Ridge High School teacher Bonnie GuessMazock was charged in January with sexual assault of the teenager. Guess-Mazock, 37, of Conroe, pleaded guilty on July 13 and will be sentenced Oct. 3 in Montgomery County District Court, according to Assistant District Attorney Michael Holley.
The suit also named the district and the company that owns Snapchat as defendants, saying faculty and administrators failed to intervene and the tech company failed to prevent interactions between the teacher and the student through its app.
Chief U.S. District Judge Lee H. Rosenthal dismissed Snap, Inc. from liability in the case July 7, but she said the guardian’s suit against the district and the teacher may go forward. Charges against both the district and the teacher must be refiled in an amended pleading, the judge said.
A Snap, Inc. spokesperson said in a statement that the company is pleased with the court’s decision, noting that, “Any sexual abuse of a member of our community is abhorrent and explicitly violates our policies.” The company also said it is “committed to constantly strengthening our protections on the app, especially for teens.”
Conroe ISD argued in court documents that the district was not responsible for the abuse and district officials did not show deliberate indifference to the assault. Attorneys for the district and the former teacher did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
A troubled background
The civil case, which was filed in January by the boy’s legal guardian, alleges that the teen, then a sophomore at Oak Ridge High, was sexually abused by his science teacher in the fall of 2021.
The complaint says GuessMazock knew the then 15-yearold was young, vulnerable and disadvantaged when she asked him to stay with her in the classroom with the door closed after the rest of the students were dismissed. This is where she began to groom him and where she requested his Snapchat username, according to documents.
The suit says the teacher seduced the student via Snapchat by sending photos of herself with solicitous messages. She chose Snapchat to communicate with him because she knew the messages would be deleted, the complaint says. The boy’s guardian also says Guess-Mazock made advances toward other students through Snapchat, but the court documents do not prove details on those allegations.
Guess-Mazock faces two charges in the federal case: violating the child’s bodily integrity and assault, battery and statutory rape. The suit says she sexually assaulted the boy in her car and at his home throughout the fall and winter of 2021. She also provided the boy with drugs or money for drugs on multiple occasions, according to allegations. Guess-Mazock purchased cough syrup and Benadryl and encouraged the student to use them prior to the assaults, the suit says.
The following January, she texted the teen asking him to purchase Percocets, according to the complaint. On Jan. 12, the boy overdosed on prescription drugs and was hospitalized. He was released after a long hospital stay, according to court documents.
The attorney for the teen said the teacher exploited a disadvantaged young man in a particularly vulnerable situation.
“His life was turbulent and chaotic. His safe haven was school. He trusted his teachers and the staff that surrounded him,” the suit says.
District accused
The lawsuit also claims that the district failed to adequately train teachers and staff to identify illegal and inappropriate student-teacher relationships. It says the interactions between Guess-Mazock and the boy were “an open secret that students frequently discussed.”
Conroe ISD also failed to properly supervise Guess-Mazock and screen teachers and staff prior to hiring them, the suit says. The boy’s guardian alleges that an adequate background check would have revealed Guess Mazock’s “pedophilic tendencies.” This detail is not backed up with detailed evidence, but Derek Merman, who filed the suit, said he suspects he could find some, because a proclivity to sexually assault minors doesn’t “suddenly manifest for the first time” when a person is in their thirties.
Social media’s liability
Merman said the boy’s guardian plans to appeal the dismissal of Snapchat’s parent company. The suit says the app is “negligently designed” because it allows minors to create accounts using false birthdays and because the messages and images get deleted shortly after they are sent. The suit also says the company is “consciously indifferent to the use of its product to foster the exploitation of a minor by an adult” and it “allows pedophiles to prey on them with apparent impunity.”
The case against the social media company may not get far, according to a lawyer with expertise suing social media companies for facilitating child exploitation and abuse through their products.
Annie McAdams, the lead attorney in a groundbreaking case that established that Facebook could be liable when the company’s technology is used to prey on kids, agreed with the federal judge’s finding that Snapchat wasn’t liable in this case.
“In this case, the child had already met the teacher and then the communications went to the social media company,” she said. “I can understand why people would believe that if you’re using it as a basis to communicate and groom, to sexually exploit a child, you would immediately think the social media company is responsible for it. But that’s not what the law says.”
McAdams says tech companies aren’t responsible for the sexual abuse if it begins off the platform, but that doesn’t mean the law isn’t antiquated.
Snapchat said in its statement that the app doesn’t allow minors to have public profiles and or show up as suggested friends unless they have friends in common with an adult. Snap also said that in the next few months, it will launch tools that will let parents see who their teens are friends with and who they’re communicating with on the platform.
“His life was turbulent and chaotic. His safe haven was school. He trusted his teachers and the staff that surrounded him.” The lawsuit