Jurors may have opened the door to a new trial in a Maryland school bullying case by saying they returned a verdict for the defense because they were afraid of setting a bad precedent for school systems throughout the country.

Glenmount Elementary School

The post-verdict comments of two jurors strongly suggest jury deliberations were infected by “extraneous considerations” that denied the parents of two alleged bullying victims a fair trial of their $1.3 million negligence case against the Baltimore City school board.

“We realized what we did would affect systems nationwide,” juror Carl Armstrong told the Baltimore Sun after a four-day trial.

“We took that heavily into consideration,” he continued, “because we knew we could open the possibility of lawsuits — from past, present and future parents of students — against schools across the country, and Baltimore City would have been at the forefront.”

The jury returned its verdict Dec. 22, finding that the Baltimore district was not liable for the harassment that the special-needs son and older daughter of Edward and Shawna Sullivan allegedly suffered at the Hazelwood and Glenmount elementary schools. The Sullivans claimed that the schools' principals ignored their complaints.

“We don't need a blow to the system,” another juror, Major Wilkes, said. “They would have had to pay a lot of money that would take away from other kids.”

Plaintiffs' attorney Donna M.B. King of Towson, Md., has now moved for a new trial, arguing that the jurors' comments

demonstrated that the jury's verdict was not based on the facts presented, but rather, was based on their fears that the Baltimore City public school system would have to divert money away from classrooms in order to pay a judgment, and that their verdict would set a precedent nationwide.

“These extraneous considerations ... tainted the verdict and amount to a miscarriage of justice,” King says in the motion.

The Sullivans' son, who has disabilities from a brain injury he suffered at 13 weeks old, was allegedly choked unconscious outside of Hazelwood as a first-grader and beaten by older classmates at Glenmount in the second grade. The family said his sister was bullied at Hazelwood for defending him.

The lawsuit alleged that the siblings, who are white, were harassed because of their race. According to the SchoolDigger website, Hazelwood's enrolment is 98.5 percent African-American and Glenmount's is 88 percent African-American.

To hold the school district liable for negligence, the Sullivans had to show that the schools had actual knowledge that their children were subjected to severe and pervasive harassment. They were seeking $1.3 million in damages.

King argued that school officials were “deaf” to the Sullivans' complaints. “The Sullivans were treated like they were annoying," she told the jury. "Because no action was taken, the children suffered and were damaged.”

At Glenmount, the suit said, staff suggested keeping the boy safe by putting a cardboard box around him.

According to the district, however, there was insuffiicient evidence of negligence because the Sullivans did not document, or have witnesses to, the bullying incidents. The jury, apparently, agreed.

“Evidence was lacking, and there were way too many holes,” Armstrong said. “Emotional-wise, they had us. But evidence-wise, they just didn't have it.”

But an expert witness testified that the officials at Hazelwood and Glenmount failed to follow Maryland's anti-bullying policies. In his own testimony, Hazelwood Principal Sidney Twiggs was remarkably cavalier about the problem.

“If a child injures another child, that's one direction — bullying is something different,” he said. “The word bullying didn't come about until another child was killed in another municipality. This recently has become a buzz word. Before, when a child had a problem, it was called 'bothering' or 'picked on.'”

The jurors' post-verdict comments indicate the jury was, in fact, “heavily” motivated by the negative impact they thought a verdict for the Sullivans could have on educators. Public policy concerns had no place in their deliberations and they should not have appointed themselves the protector of school districts.

By Matthew Heller
1/10/12