HANCOCK COUNTY — A county woman and her guardians have filed a civil lawsuit against two local school corporations, claiming negligence to protect a developmentally and cognitively disabled girl who court documents show was sexually assaulted on a district school campus in 2017.
According to the lawsuit, that girl is an “incapacitated person” who is now an adult. The woman, along with her official court appointed guardians, are suing the Community School Corporation of Southern Hancock County, the Community School Corporation of Eastern Hancock County and the now 24-year-old man, who was an 18-year-old student in 2017.
The civil case, with four separate claims, was officially filed in Hancock County Circuit Court on Oct. 4 with the plaintiff asking for a jury trial.
A look back at the incident in 2017 shows that three Level 5 felony criminal charges of sexual misconduct with a minor were filed against a then 18-year-old teenage male who was charged as an adult. However, the criminal case was officially dismissed from circuit court by special judge Cody Coombs on June 18, 2019.
The Daily Reporter reached out to the prosecutor’s office to find out why the criminal charges were dismissed, but did not receive an answer by deadline.
According to the current civil lawsuit opened earlier this month, it states the woman and her guardians are bringing the lawsuit forth because “the plaintiff is an incapacitated person who seeks to preserve her privacy in this sensitive and highly personal matter.”
The now adult male also being sued was once a student at New Palestine High School (NPHS) before transferring to Eastern Hancock High School where the lawsuit states a sexual assault took place.
The current civil lawsuit shows the matter was also initially filed in the United States District Court, Southern District of Indiana on Aug. 22, 2019. However, on Sept. 29 of this year, the U.S. District Court dismissed without prejudice the state law legal claims set forth in the complaint.
However, the lawsuit states, “the plaintiff timely re-files her state law claims in state court.”
The lawsuit says the now adult woman was “a minor and a developmentally and cognitively disabled student with special needs who is now an adult with the cognitive and mental ability of a child.”
The court documents note that the male student in the case attended NPHS in 2014 , where he brought a laxative to school and put it in a female student’s coffee, but NPHS officials expunged the laxative incident from the male’s school record. Then in 2015, while the male student attended NPHS, a female student reported to a NPHS guidance counselor the male student sexually harassed her, but officials there did not report the incident or believe it was credible.
The lawsuit goes on to say that in 2016 while still attending NPHS, the male student touched a female NPHS student in a sexual manner, without her consent, on multiple occasions while at the school. The lawsuit claims that when reported to officials at the school, a teacher there told the girl’s guardian, “boys will be boys.”
The lawsuit notes while school officials recorded the incidents in the records of the girls who complained, the incidents were not recorded in the record of the male student who transferred to Eastern Hancock High School (EHHS) in 2016 during the middle of his junior year.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit go on to describe how Eastern Hancock officials knew there were issues with the male who while at EHHS was also accused of sending an email of a sexual nature to a female student using his school account.
The lawsuit notes the male student then sent sexually explicit text messages to the plaintiff’s cell phone in the fall of 2017, which included a text message containing a picture of his private area asking the plaintiff to meet him in the school bathroom the next day.
According to the lawsuit, the girl then met the male student in the bathroom where he forced her to perform unwanted sexual acts until two other female students entered the restroom, causing him to stop the sexual assault of the girl. The lawsuit goes on to say the male was sentenced to in-school suspension, but he remained in school until Nov. 17, 2017. The plaintiff, the lawsuit says, had to be removed from the classroom she had been attending and put into another classroom in order to avoid possible contact with the accused male student.
The lawsuit goes on to state that, due to the emotional distress resulting from her sexual assault, the girl could no longer handle attending EHHS and transferred to a different school. The lawsuit says she has participated in trauma counseling as well as other medical treatment related to the severe emotional distress caused by the sexual assault by the male student. The lawsuit notes, she “continues to suffer from severe emotional distress, anxiety, stress, and fear.”
One of the four claims in the lawsuit says officials with Eastern Hancock, (who are no longer with the district), should have known the male student asked a different female student to engage in conduct intended to gratify his sexual desires and posed a foreseeable risk of danger to other female students at the school.
The lawsuit says the district was “negligent” as the girl who was sexually assaulted was a student with cognitive and developmental disabilities and was particularly vulnerable to sexual harassment and sexual assault because she had been subject to them before.
“Eastern Hancock School Corporation owed (the girl) a duty to protect her from (the male student’s) foreseeable sexual misconduct,” the lawsuit says. The lawsuit then accuses officials with Southern Hancock of “negligence” as well, claiming the male student had a history of sexual assault and/or sexual harassment at NPHS and posed a foreseeable risk of danger to female students.
“Before facilitating a transfer, NPHS owed a duty to plaintiff to warn EHHS of the dangers (the male student) would pose to female students at EHHS,” the lawsuit says.
Another claim in the lawsuit is against the now 24-year-old former male student saying, “on Nov, 7, 2017, (the male student) engaged in harmful or offensive contact with (the girl) including contact of a sexual nature, and knowingly or intentionally touched (the girl) in a rude, insolent, and/or angry manner when he sexually assaulted (the girl).”
The last claim in the case deals with emotional distress suffered to the girl with lawsuit asking for relief for the plaintiff including compensatory damages, damages for emotional distress, punitive damages and all costs for attorney fees.
Current district officials with Eastern Hancock noted they were not employed with the district during the 2017 incident and thought it best to wait until the case made its way through the court system to comment. Southern Hancock officials noted the same, but also stated several of the front office staff who were at NPHS during the time of the student incidents are no longer employed with the district.
