Posted on 07/09/2006 11:33:36 AM PDT by DBeers
A $10 million lawsuit claiming local school officials were accountable for a teacher raping a boy was rejected by a judge Friday because it was filed too late, an attorney said.
Stephen Craig Fults was a teacher at Barfield Elementary School when police charged him with the crime against a former student who was then attending Riverdale High in April 2003. He was convicted of the charge.
The student, who is now an adult, and his mother filed a suit with the Circuit Court in Murfreesboro last January. Judge Mark Rogers, though, determined that the plaintiff failed to file suit within 12 months of the alleged negligence, said Deb Smith, a Nashville attorney defending the school board and Barfield Principal Judy Goodwin.
"If you get a timeline, you have to adhere to it," said Smith, adding that the judge's decision was based on procedure and not the facts of the case. "We uphold the (school system) didn't do anything wrong, but that's not the issue."
The mother and son will appeal the decision that was based on a "technicality," said Jeff Cox, a plaintiff's attorney for Murfreesboro-based Mitchell & Mitchell law firm.
State law requires that school districts protect students, Cox said.
The plaintiffs contend the district failed to screen out Fults from employment because his former employer, DeKalb County Board of Education, investigated him for using a computer to look up more than 400 pornographic Web sites.
"This case is ripe for appeal," Cox said. "I'm anticipating a couple of more years of litigation at the appeals level. We have to take steps to protect the students of our school system."
The issue needs to be addressed throughout the state and in this county, Cox said. The district here has had 46 complaints about teachers and other district employees related to varying degrees of sexual inappropriate conduct with students.
"We have a situation where a principal certainly had notice where this teacher was a danger," Cox said.
Goodwin knew Fults was a homosexual and had heard complaints alleging that he kissed a male student in the hallway, Cox said.
A phone message was left for Goodwin Friday, but she was not available for comment.
"We have to protect our children," Cox said. "Until the Legislature steps in and improves background checks and frankly holds school systems accountable, we're left asking the courts to do this. I fully intend to fight this all the way up. It will take the (Tennessee) Supreme Court to say we have no case. That's the only way I'll go away."
The mother and son initially filed a federal suit against the school board and Goodwin in February 2004. The suit cited district officials for failing to protect the former student's civil rights and require appropriate assistance to those with disabilities, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Joe Brown dismissed the federal litigation in January in Nashville, and the mother and son then filed their local suit.
what we need is a law making teacher/child rape cases not expirable...
Yes, but this case was not about punishing the teacher. This was going after the deep pockets of the school system. If the stated aim is "making sure this never happens again," then firing those responsible for looking the other way is how you accomplish that, not by giving the administrators a free pass and hitting the taxpayers for a ton of money (and making an ambulance chaser rich in the process).
oh ok, yeah it's like suing gun makers because a gun that some criminal used to kill and innocent person was manufactured by them... punish the criminal, sue the criminal, execute the criminal.. that is the real fix
Somehow I don't think the court would have ruled this way if the perpetrator had been a Catholic priest instead of a public school teacher. Call me a cynic.
I hope he does get paid.
Thinking the same thing.
Don't get me wrong, I think that the offending priests those who hid the priests and allowed this abuse to go should be punished. I just find it ironic that dead priests can be accused of all sorts of horrid things, and dioceses bankrupted and yet this lawsuit is not allowed to go forward.
It truly is scary how many predators are in our school system.
Oh please! The homo rapist should get life behind bars, but the lotto lawsuit in Federal court is to much.
an adult...so he is 18 which means he was 15 then and he got "raped"...ooooooooook
Yes, absoultely. Also, I don't want to sound like the school system should get off scott free, but pulling $10M out of the taxpayers will not change much of anything. If there are school officials who messed up, go after them personally. It will be a greater lesson to those who remain than having the townspeople pay a fine, or even worse, having the insurance company pay the fine so only the insurer learns the lesson.
Why??? What he suffered is a tragedy, but people suffer tragedies all the time and don't get a penny. Is the person who caused the tragedy going to do the paying? If not then why should he get paid.
Cynic, no -rational observer, yes. Many jurisdictions have set aside specifically such "time limits" in cases of those filing legal suits against the Church in cases involving homosexual predator clergy members.
--Such precedence placing justice above above process (do not know if it has happened in Tennessee) should be cited in any appeal(s)...
Their problem was their lawyer had them file a federal case first. They should have filed both a federal and local case at the same time (February of 2004) then they would have met the deadlines.
Statute of Limitations are not "technicalities". They exist to make sure people who are REALLY harmed can sue without the rest of us worrying about getting sued for stuff that happened years ago.
Statutes of limitations are a critical element of justice. Lawsuits filed more than two years after an alleged wrong are more difficult to prove -- and to defend -- as evidence disappears, memories fade, and witnesses move on or die. Remember that there are always two sides to an issue, and both sides must be entitled to a fair trial -- and that means a full examination of credible evidence. It has to be assumed that most cases with merit will be filed within a reasonable period. For the sake of justice, there must be a deadline.
"I just find it ironic that dead priests can be accused of all sorts of horrid things, and dioceses bankrupted and yet this lawsuit is not allowed to go forward."
The public schools are the temples of the civil religion, and the teachers and administrators are its priests and prelates. Of course the messianic warfare/welfare state will hound its religious rivals without mercy - - - so no peace or safety for the property of the Roman Catholic communion when some of its priests and higherups turn out to be pederasts who protected each other, but the state legal system will protect the assets of state worship, regardless of how many children are raped by teachers, coaches, or school administrators. It makes plenty of sense, if you view it from the correct angle.
Sometimes punitive measures are justified. In this case it appears the school was negligent and allowed the child to be attack. This does justify a punitive action against the school system.
Even if the money paid out is taxpayer money it is at least going to a more worthy cause than to allow the money to be used to further damage our children.
You are correct that tragedy does occur daily. In a few cases corrective measures are available. This is one of those cases.
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