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Title: School, City Liable in School Beating But Not Officials
Author:
ID: LL126
Issue: SU2-2
Issue Date: 2005-03-01
Edition: School
Type: Article

Body: A U.S. District Court in Pennsylvania has ruled that a school district and a police department can be held liable for a severe beating inflicted by 15 gangbangers that left a high school honors student permanently brain damaged. The court, however, ruled that school and police officials as individuals have qualified immunity in connection to the beating.

Matthew Gremo was in a common area of the George Washington High School in Philadelphia in November 2001 when a gang of 15 students threw a blanket over his head and began to kick and punch him. His attackers beat him into unconsciousness by inflicting repeated blows to his head, face, body and neck. As a result of the attack, Gremo has permanent cognitive impairments, comprehension difficulties and short-term memory lapses and will have to be permanently medicated.

Gremo filed a civil rights suit against the school district, police department and numerous involved public officials under 42 U.S.C.S. ß 1983, alleging a violation of his right to bodily integrity under the 14th amendment. He also sued under other state and federal laws for negligence and willful misconduct on the part of public officials.

In accepting the defendantsí motion to suppress in this case, Judge Anita Brody noted that prior to the incident, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives had mandated the Philadelphia school district to formulate and implement administrative procedures and disciplinary responses to abate what the legislative body referred to as ìunfettered violenceî within the cityís school system. Brody found that the school failed to follow the mandate and therefore ìfostered brutal violenceî against innocent students.

For two years before Gremoís beating, a gang of students terrorized other students by throwing ìblanket partiesî in which studentsí heads were covered and they were beaten. The court said that, although the school knew the identity of the attackers and their victims, it made no attempt to monitor the area where these beatings were occurring or otherwise abate the violence. Likewise, the court found that the city police department knew about the beatings, but failed to assist the school in curtailing the violence.

On the issue of qualified immunity, the court found that prior to this incident, there was no case law that held that a school or police official would violate a studentís rights by being indifferent to his/her safety at school. Accordingly, the court granted qualified immunity to the officials as individuals. However, because there was case law that held schools and municipalities constitutional liable under similar circumstances, the court went on to perform a legal analysis to determine the extent of those entitiesí liability.

The court said that, while the state generally has no duty to protect its citizens from violent acts committed by private individuals, there are two instances when the state may be found liable: one, if a ìspecial relationshipî exists between the state and injured individual, and, two, if a state actor creates a danger that harms a person or renders him or her more vulnerable to danger.

The court found that, under the law, no special relationship existed because the school did not have exclusive custody of Matthew. The court said, however, that the harm was foreseeable because the school knew similar attacks on other students had occurred at the school; that school and police officials acted in willful disregard to the plaintiffís safety by not implementing security measures; and that the officials used their authority to create an opportunity that otherwise would not have existed for the third partyís crime to occur. The court said that the officialsí refusal to implement stronger security measures amounted to an endorsement of the violence.

Ultimately, the court found that school and police officials ìwho foresaw the danger of continued attacks were acting with deliberate indifference when they concealed the attacks and failed to address the unmonitored common areas that were commonly the sites of the attacks.î Accordingly, the court found that the school and city were potentially liable for not having the proper policies and procedures in place to protect students from violence at George Washington High School.

Note: The district courtís opinion was issued as a result of the defendantís motion to suppress. The judge also ruled on state immunity claims. The judgeís decisions allowed the case to proceed to trial, notwithstanding a settlement.



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