Calif. School District Ruled Not Liable for Sexual Assault
The judges found that no additional security measures could’ve prevented the assault.
On October 15 a court found a school district in San Francisco not responsible for the sexual assault of a high school student on campus.
The ruling dismisses a lawsuit brought by the victim accusing the school of negligence, according to sfgate.com.
The incident occurred at Galileo High School in September 2011. A 14-year-old female had just left class when she met an older boy who asked to walk around school with her. When the two entered a lit stairwell on campus the boy grabbed her, forcibly sodomized her and stole her necklace.
The victim’s lawyers argued the school should’ve had better security measures in place to prevent the assault. But a First District Court of Appeal upheld the decision of Superior Court Judge Ernest Goldsmith that additional security measures would not have prevented the assault.
The school district argued that no similar assaults had ever been reported at the school. Galileo High School has six full-time security guards on duty and 112 surveillance cameras around the building, though not in the stairwell of the incident.
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