Moreno Valley Unified School District's Initial Legal Approach to the Diego Stolz Bullying Death Was Dehumanizing
Talk about victim-blaming. From the Press-Enterprise, in the continuing legal positioning surrounding the bullying-related death of Moreno Valley Unified School District student Diego Stolz, the district's school board fired its legal team last week.
Superintendent Martinrez Kedziora said the emergency meeting to replace the district's legal counsel was the direct result of the public outcry from the Press-Enterprise article earlier in the week. In that report, the district's legal counsel of Los Angeles-based Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith claimed that Stolz's family "failed to take proper care and/or reduce or mitigate any damages" caused by how the district handled bullying.
That legal defense runs completely counter to Moreno Valley Unified School District's own policy and reforms on bullying, Kedziora emphasized.
“We were clear and have been clear, that we would never blame the victim and would not blame the family, because we’re not that kind of community and not that kind of district,” Kedziora said.
Stolz was an eighth grader at Landmark Middle School and on Sept. 13, 2019, he and an older cousin reported a bullying incident to the school. The assistant principal told the family the two boys bullying Stolz would be suspended and would not be on campus that next day. Unfortunately, they were, and they sucker-punched Stolz in an attack captured on video. His head struck a pillar and fell, unconscious. The two bullies kept hitting him and Stolz never regained consciousness. He died eight days later.
Since then the two bullies have admitted their guilt.
The school district did the right thing letting it’s community know it will not engage in “scorched-earth” litigation to win at any cost. Lewis Brisbois, like many law firms defending such cases, take the distasteful position of victim blaming as a tactic to dehumanize the victim. I’m only surprised the district was unaware that standard approach was being used. I’m glad to know the district's new legal team will not be taking that legal direction.
Retired Justice California Court of Appeal
3 年I’m speculating here, but it’s speculation after spending 40 plus years in the legal profession serving in all aspects. Most likely the law firm automatically included all potential affirmative defenses in preparing its response to the complaint on behalf of the school system, a common practice which I witnessed as a trial judge and appellate Justice. Comparative fault is a standard affirmative defense. More often than not after discovery and further reflection one or more of the asserted defenses are dropped. If the firm did so without checking with the school district, shame on it. But if it did check with the school district and obtained the go-ahead then the school district is at fault. The bottom line; this appears to be standard operating procedure at the early stages of litigation which required some further thought given the nature of the claim being made my the parents of the deceased child.