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NJ bully's paralyzing punch nets $4.2M settlement
Fox News ^ | April 18, 2012

Posted on 04/18/2012 12:38:05 PM PDT by Wolfie

NJ bully's paralyzing punch nets $4.2M settlement

RAMSEY, N.J. – A New Jersey school district has agreed to pay $4.2 million to settle a lawsuit by a middle school student who was paralyzed when a known bully punched him in the abdomen.

The settlement between the Ramsey school district and the family of Sawyer Rosenstein, who had complained to the district about being bullied, was worked out over the past two months but not made public until last week.

The family's lawsuit alleged school officials knew or should have known the boy's attacker had violent tendencies and failed to comply with a state anti-bullying law, said the Rosensteins' attorney, Jeffrey Youngman. The boy had punched another student in the face on a school bus a year earlier, but the school kept no record of it or other attacks and the attacker was not subjected to escalating discipline, the suit said.

Just three months before being punched, Rosenstein, then 12, emailed school officials to report he was being bullied and to ask for help.

"I would like to let you know that the bullying has increased," he wrote to his guidance counselor at the Eric Smith Middle School. "I would like to figure out some coping mechanisms to deal with these situations, and I would just like to put this on file so if something happens again, we can show that there was past bullying situations."

(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: bullying
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To: whd23

I think schools work toward crafting outcomes that keep the whole thing as quiet as possible. Which usually means the bullied should just STFU already and take it.


21 posted on 04/18/2012 1:42:50 PM PDT by Wolfie
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To: New Jersey Realist

I think the school officials should be liable, individually as well as the actor and his family. They should be impoverished.

I don’t blame the kid for going for the money though. His medical bills will run to the millions.


22 posted on 04/18/2012 1:47:46 PM PDT by SargeK
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To: varon

“Think I’ll ever get a good answer?”

Who is John Galt?


23 posted on 04/18/2012 2:13:42 PM PDT by petro45acp ("Don't" read 'HOPE' by L Neil Smith and Aaron Zelman...it will bring tears to eyes.)
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To: petro45acp

Is the young man still paralyzed? Or did he recover? Seems like $4 million is insufficient compensation for a lifetime of paralysis, if that is the case.


24 posted on 04/18/2012 2:34:04 PM PDT by Godwin1
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To: Wolfie
...a sock full of C batteries...

A bar of soap works pretty good too...

Regards,
GtG

25 posted on 04/18/2012 2:38:08 PM PDT by Gandalf_The_Gray (I live in my own little world, I like it 'cuz they know me here.)
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To: New Jersey Realist
Why is the school responsible for a bully? Sue the parents.

The school has deeper pockets.
Another question. Why didn't the wimps parents do something? Wimps have been pushed around for years. It is only when they dare stand up for themselves will it stop. Wimps now have a way to collect for their cowardliness, and these parents are first in line to collect.
26 posted on 04/18/2012 2:58:27 PM PDT by John D
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To: New Jersey Realist

Our school’s Union staffers are the biggest bullies. By law, we require kids to attend taxpayer schools. If you are going to do this, the schools have the responsibility to protect them from being paraylized by the animals you have entraped them with. Zero tolerance makes everyone guilty in a violent incident and sometimes that is a lie. Mindless zero tolerance is amoral and unethical as is sexually molesting everyone at the airport, espeically the ones with heart pacemakers and wheelchairs.

The left will take this and run with it, though. Soon it will be “bullying” of the highest and most dangerous degree to disagree with them on anything; especially their intolerance of whites, Christians, adult sexual interaction with kids, and boys. All politics and social expressions can be controled by anti-bullying measures.


27 posted on 04/18/2012 3:21:28 PM PDT by SaraJohnson
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To: Wolfie

I could not find any reference as to what happened to the bully.


28 posted on 04/18/2012 3:23:31 PM PDT by Revel
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To: Wolfie

“Sawyer Rosenstein, now an 18-year-old freshman majoring in COMMUNICATION at Syracuse University...”

One would think that being hit so hard would knock some sense into him - but no, he’ll just wind up being a left-wing fanatic.


29 posted on 04/18/2012 4:02:11 PM PDT by BobL
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To: New Jersey Realist

Both parents and the school should be in court. The school
obviously knew of the bully and did nothing. I have
found all the anti-bulling talk from school admins. and
teachers to be just that—all talk. The adults left the
schools long ago.
I tell friends who are experiencing a child being bullied
to follow school policy and document everything and when
the bullying turns violent bring in the police and lgnore
school admin. They are as useless as a screen door
on a submarine.
In my day a hard punch to the nose of a bully got better results.


30 posted on 04/18/2012 4:57:26 PM PDT by sarge83
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To: Wolfie

The bully’s parents are both deceased; Sawyer had made a comment about the bully’s mother who had committed suicide prior to the attack


31 posted on 03/27/2013 6:41:12 PM PDT by NJ13
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To: NJ13

There was a seperate settlement with the attacker, parents or not.


32 posted on 03/28/2013 4:18:33 AM PDT by Wolfie
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