I am legal guardian a child who was abused by a janitor at his school for 2years. How can I hold the school liable. He is a special needs child that will need counseling. I want to put in public schools and different extracurricular programs that may improve his self-esteem like music lessons, karate.... Just in case he is not capable of functioning in society I want him to have the ability to afford decent care for the rest of his life. What should I do to make the school accountable for the damage done to him by their employee right under their noses on campus.
I apologize for the directness of this question, but when you say abused, do you mean sexually abused?
yes
Yes, it was a sexual abuse ,
I never got a reply just a question for a question
Relist: Other.Answered question with a question. No other reply.. I do not want another question, I want to leave this website. The subject was very senstive. Now I am regretting using this site
I apologize for the inconvenience I answered with a huge response that seems to have not been posted. Give me a moment and I will happily repost
okay
The short answer is that you should hire an attorney to help you with a claim against the janitor, the school, and the school board. If you decide to hire an attorney, a great resource is Martindale.com. This is a nationwide directory that is useful in finding highly qualified legal specialists in various fields of law. The lawyers in Martindale are not selected because they paid to be included, but rather because they have been rated by other attorneys as qualified experts in their field. Consider consulting with two or three different attorneys prior to selecting the one you feel most comfortable with.Your case will likely hinge on whether or not school officials with supervisory authority have actual knowledge of the abuse and respond with deliberate indifference.The much longer is:Texas Penal Code § 21.12 defines an "improper relationship between educator and student." Encompassing the behavior of teachers, principals, janitors, secretaries, coaches and other employees, the statute states that "an employee of a public or private primary or secondary school commits an offense" by engaging in a "sexual contact, sexual intercourse, or deviate sexual intercourse" with a student "who is enrolled" at the school in which the employee works.Seeking legal advice in this matter may be helpful in protecting the child. Especially since a judge in a 2002 case of a teacher's admitted relationship with a 13-year-old student dismissed the idea that the teacher was a sexual abuser because the teen had not been "psychologically damaged." and sentenced the teacher to only five years probation. The school board was not held liable. When you speak to the attorney you will have the option of suing the school boards and their supervisory employees. You can claim for negligent hiring, or negligent supervision of the janitor. However, as Texas has a history of being lenient under negligence theories, you may want to sue the school systems in federal court, alleging constitution violations based on the sexual conduct of the janitor. At least two federal circuit courts recognized a constitutional cause of action against school boards in these situations. In Stoneking v. Bradford Area School District (1989), the Third Circuit ruled that students have a constitutional right to be free from sexual molestation by teachers. Here a female high school student alleged that she was the victim of sexual abuse by the school’s band director over a period of several years. In addition, the student claimed that school administrators knew about the band director’s conduct yet failed to act. The Third Circuit reasoned that the student’s allegations, if true, were actionable as a violation of her constitutional rights.The law goes on and I can continue if you would like, but in short, while you can absolutely go after the janitor, to go after the school, and get the money it appears you are looking for, you will have to find out that someone at that school knew about what was going on and refused to fire the janitor or stop the abuse.Hopefully this answer is helpful to you. If not, please do not hesitate to ask any additional questions you may have.
Again, I cannot apologize enough for the delay in time to your question. I understand that this subject is very personal to you, and wish the technological problem had not occurred. JustAnswer usually does not have such problems, and I will put in a ticket to make sure it does not happen again in the future.Does my response answer your question? Do you have additional questions? Is there anything else that I can help you with?