Rivkin Radler’s Bruno and Biegel secure summary judgment in a disaability discrimination case

Rivkin Radler Partner Jonathan Bruno and Associate Jason Biegel were granted summary judgment by Judge Paul Oetken of the Southern District of New York in an action against a Catholic school located in Riverdale, New York.

The plaintiffs, a recent graduate of the school and her father, alleged that the school inadequately addressed the bullying the student experienced from kindergarten through the eighth grade in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Rehabilitation Act, and New York State and New York City Human Rights Laws. Plaintiffs also brought claims for negligence; negligent hiring, retention and supervision; loss of services; and negligent infliction of emotional distress. Plaintiffs alleged that the school was informed of several bullying-related incidents that occurred both on and off school property where the plaintiff was subjected to bodily harm, name-calling, cat-fishing, and mean messages through social media. Plaintiffs further alleged that the school’s failure to take action to stop the bullying resulted in the student trying to end her life while she was in the eighth grade. Plaintiffs claimed that the other students bullied her because of her learning disability.

The school moved for summary judgment, arguing that any bullying the plaintiff experienced did not rise to an actionable level and that the school’s teachers and administrators were not deliberately indifferent to it. In his Opinion and Order, Judge Oetken agreed that the plaintiff failed to adequately meet the necessary burden set forth in Davis Next Friend LaShonda D. v. Monroe Cnty. Bd. Of Educ., 526 U.S. 629 (1999), which requires a plaintiff to sufficiently allege and prove that: (1) they were subject to harassment on the basis of a disability; (2) the harassment was so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it altered their education; (3) the school had actual notice of the disability-based harassment; and (4) the school was deliberately indifferent to it.

More specifically, Judge Oekten ruled that the incidents the plaintiffs complained of were isolated and, with the exception of a single incident, not related to the student’s disability. The court determined that even if such incidents were sufficiently related to the plaintiff’s disability, the plaintiffs failed to demonstrate that the school did so little to safeguard the plaintiff so as to give rise to a reasonable inference that the private school intended for the bullying to continue.