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Sexually abused third-graders bore responsibility, school district insisted for 12 years
By Scott Travis
In response to a lawsuit from the girls' families, the district said the children "conducted themselves in a careless and negligent manner" and administrators should not be held responsible.
For a dozen years, the Palm Beach County School District insisted that four third-grade girls bore responsibility for allowing their teacher to molest them in 2005.
In court documents, the district said the children were "old enough to appreciate the consequences of their actions."
An outside lawyer hired by the district even called it a standard legal defense, which the district had used since 2006.
The district said in February court papers that the 9-year-old girls "conducted themselves in a careless and negligent manner," which contributed to any suffering. The students claimed emotional distress and other injuries after former teacher Blake Sinrod molested them in 2005 at Coral Sunset Elementary, west of Boca Raton.
The defense was drafted by the Hollywood law firm Conroy Simberg. School Board member Erica Whitfield said a school district attorney who handles risk management cases reviewed it.
Blake Sinrod was arrested in 2005. (Handout)
But school district administrators would not directly address who reviewed the case. Superintendent Robert Avossa referred questions to the Hollywood law firm.
Whitfield and School Board members Karen Brill, Debra Robinson and Frank Barbieri said the district was wrong to suggest the students might somehow be at fault.
"I don't think a child can ever consent to being sexually abused," said Barbieri, whose district includes Coral Sunset.
School Board members Chuck Shaw, Marcia Andrews and Barbara McQuinn did not respond to phone calls on Wednesday, but the school district released a statement attributed to the School Board.
"The board, with its attorneys, must consider all legal defenses on a case-by-case basis. However, this current School Board has never taken the position that a child could be implicit in their own child abuse," the statement reads.
It took 12 years for the district to decide whether it bore any responsibility in the case involving Sinrod, who pleaded guilty to molesting two of the children in 2006.
Sinrod was fired in 2006 and his teaching license was revoked in 2008. He could not be reached for comment.
The School Board is expected to approve a $3.6 million settlement — one of its largest ever — at an Oct. 18 meeting.
Conroy Simberg has worked on the case since 2006 and its filings have always included the same language about the children being old enough to take responsibility, said Dale Friedman, an attorney with the firm.
She said the defense is called "comparative negligence," and it's used in court filings before all the facts are known. She said the purpose was not to claim the girls were responsible, but to bring up factors that could reduce the amount of damages the district might have to pay. For example, she said the former students chose not to get psychological treatment.
"We have never blamed these girls or given the appearance of holding the girls responsible for what their teacher did,' she said.
She said this defense is common but declined to name other cases in which it was used.
Jeffrey Herman, a Boca Raton lawyer who has represented clients in about 1,000 sexual abuse cases, said he doesn't recall this negligence defense being used against any abused children he represented. He said it's more common for organizations accused of sexual abuse to lay blame on parents, claiming they failed to protect their children.
"The real problem with this [defense] is it revictimizes the victims," he said. "There's meaning and impact when you file things. It's forever part of the permanent record that the School Board is blaming these third-graders."
Board member Debra Robinson said there may be valid reasons to use this defense, but this wasn't one of them.
"I can't imagine right now the circumstances by which an elementary child is partially responsible," Robinson said.
School Board member Brill said: "It is my intent to ensure that this type of defense is never, ever used again in the district. The board had no knowledge that this was the manner in which the school district was going to defend the case, and in no way is it appropriate. I think we're all outraged.''
School police investigated Sinrod in 2005, when one of the girls told her mother that the teacher had fondled her during a reading group. The girl said he touched her under her clothing and instructed her to touch his private area over his clothing, according to a police report.
The three other girls painted similar pictures to police. They described Sinrod inappropriately touching them during a reading group or classroom movie. Some of the girls said they gave him neck rubs, and some said Sinrod instructed them to place their hand on his genital area outside his clothes, according to a police report.
School police determined there was enough evidence to charge Sinrod in all four cases, although the State Attorney's Office pursued only allegations involving two of the girls. Sinrod pleaded guilty but adjudication was withheld after he met conditions of his probation, according to court records.
The parents of the four children filed a civil suit in 2006. Their lawyer at the time, Charles Bechert, said then that the parents believed Sinrod targeted the children because they were immigrants whose parents may not have known how to report crimes to authorities.
The case has gone through several amendments and appeals since then.
In February, after another brief in the case was filed, the school district hired a forensic psychologist to examine the victims. He concluded the former students, who are now adults, were telling the truth, Friedman said.
"As the facts became clear, we recommended a settlement," Friedman said.
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If the case had gone to trial, she said, the firm would have advised against using the defense that the students were negligent. In another part of its defense, the district argued that Sinrod's actions were "unknown and beyond the foresight of reasonably prudent persons."
However, the parents' lawsuit says another parent had complained to a Coral Sunset assistant principal in 2003 about a similar incident involving a second-grade girl but was told the daughter must be lying.
Marc Wites, the lawyer for the four girls, argued the school district failed to investigate or take action against Sinrod when the 2003 allegations surfaced.
stravis@sunsentinel.com, 561-243-6637 or Twitter @smtravis
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