Judge dismisses Leechburg district’s immunity claim in lawsuit alleging girl was raped at middle school

An Armstrong County judge struck down the Leechburg Area School District’s claim that a state law gives it immunity from being sued by the mother of a former middle school student who alleges her daughter was raped during an after-school program in 2021.

In May, the girl’s mother filed a lawsuit alleging that a lack of supervision during the after-school program provided another student with the opportunity to sexually assault her daughter.

The civil lawsuit filed in Armstrong County Court seeks compensation for past and future medical and therapeutic services, pain and suffering, and unspecified punitive damages.

Superintendent Tiffany Nix said the district cannot comment on pending litigation. The district’s solicitor, Andrews & Price, did not respond to a request from the Trib for comment.

The lawsuit stems from a Nov. 5, 2021, incident during an after-school program at Leechburg Middle/Senior High School in which students were permitted to remain in the building for 30 minutes after dismissal at 2:30 p.m. to work on projects and assignments or to get help with their studies, according to a copy obtained by the Trib.

Lawyers for the girl allege that even though it was school-sanctioned, the district had lax rules for how it was operated. Students did not have to sign in or tell teachers or other staff they were attending, the lawsuit claims.

In its response to the lawsuit, the district argued that it is immune from being sued under the state’s Tort Claims Act, according to a copy of the memorandum the Trib received.

But Judge James Panchik noted in his memorandum dismissing the argument that while the law protects government agencies and its employees from being sued, there are exceptions.

He wrote: “The conduct (by both action and omission) of the School District as alleged … fits precisely within the purview of the Tort Claim Act’s sexual abuse exception to immunity.”

The judge also rejected the district’s argument that it “owed no duty, under any theory, to protect (the girl) from the sexual assault committed by one of its students on the school’s premises.”

In his memorandum, Panchik balked at that claim, writing: “A school district has an absolute obligation to ensure the safety and welfare of all students” because the teachers and administrators have the same responsibility as parents when students are in their care.

He said the district “owed (the girl) a duty to take responsible steps to protect her from assault.”

Panchik also dismissed the district’s argument that “imposing a standard of care on school districts to prevent student-on-student sexual assault is overly burdensome and against public policy.”

The district argued that preventing the girl from being sexually assaulted would require “nothing short of prison-like security conditions where students are not permitted to move anywhere on school property without being escorted and monitored by security personnel.”

But the girl’s lawyer argued that the lawsuit wasn’t seeking to impose unreasonable requirements on the district because it “provided no supervision at all.”

The judge said it will be up to a jury to decide whether the district breached its duty to provide a reasonable level of care in protecting students from sexual assault.

Panchik also dismissed the district’s argument that it could not have known ahead of time or “foreseen” that a sexual assault could occur in the bathroom because nobody had been raped there before.

The judge said the district’s position interprets the concept of “foreseeability” too narrowly because “the general type of risk here is that an assault could occur on school premises where no school supervision or monitoring was in place, not the risk that a student would sexually assault another student in a bathroom.”

The lawsuit contends the school district was aware that prior assaults had occurred on school property but still failed to supervise or monitor its students during its after-school program.

Lawyers for the girl cited three prior incidents at the school to support the claim that district officials should have known that an assault could take place and taken steps to prevent it from happening.

They noted in the court filing that:

• There previously was a hazing incident in the men’s basketball locker room with the alleged knowledge of the men’s basketball team staff.

• A student pointed a gun at another student in the same bathroom where the alleged sexual assault occurred.

• There was a report of an alleged inappropriate touching of a student by a teacher.