LAS VEGAS (CN) - A girl who said a Las Vegas High School classmate repeatedly punched her in the head failed on Monday to get the Ninth Circuit to revive her lawsuit against the school district.
Rosa Lainez Lemus and her daughter argued before a lower court that the Clark County School District faced responsibility for placing the violent student in the same room. They said the attacker threatened and harassed the daughter before ambushing her in February 2022 and knocking her unconscious. Cellphone footage of the attack later drew some national attention.
The lower court dismissed the suit, ruling the district wasn't responsible. On Monday, a three-judge appeals panel agreed.
"The alleged incidents of N.A.'s misbehavior are insufficient to allege plausibly that [Clark County School District] had notice of the danger that N.A. posed to other students at the time that CCSD placed her in a classroom with G.R.L.," the panel wrote. "Thus, plaintiffs have not pleaded sufficient facts to allege plausibly that CCSD 'recognize[d] the unreasonable risk.'"
The mother and daughter had argued the school district knew the attacker, referred to as N.A., was violent. Despite that, the district placed the student in a general education classroom.
However, the lower court and Ninth Circuit panel found not enough evidence existed to support their state-created danger theory.
The appeals panel wrote that plaintiffs must show the school district exposed someone to an actual danger they wouldn't have faced, it foresaw the potential injury and was indifferent to the danger.
Attorney Andre Lagomarsino, representing the mother and child, argued in March that the district knew the attacker had a history of violence as she threw a bottle of lotion at someone in 2019.
"Plaintiffs' allegations do not support a reasonable inference that the danger of injury was foreseeable," the appeals panel wrote, adding later: "The other allegations related to N.A.'s behavioral history concern her insubordination to teachers; they do not involve violence or conflict with other students."
The mother and daughter also claimed the attacker's mental health history bolstered an inference that the school district knew about her violent past. The attacker had in-patient treatment for several weeks in 2021 for a mental, long-term condition. Also, she couldn't attend school at the start of the 2021-22 academic year.
However, the appeals panel noted the plaintiffs offered no facts suggesting that mental-health care was linked to a history of violence. Additionally, they provided no information about that condition or the school district's understanding of it.
"The facts that plaintiffs alleged are insufficient to have put CCSD on notice that placing N.A. in a general education classroom would pose a risk of physical violence to other students," it wrote.
Pivoting to a municipal liability claim, the panel wrote that a plaintiff must provide evidence of a policy, custom or practice serving as the impetus for a constitutional violation.
The claim has two elements a plaintiff must meet. The lower court assumed the school district had a policy of putting violent students in general education classrooms - the first bar. However, the mother and daughter didn't sufficiently argue that policy was the cause of the attack.
"As discussed, the facts do not support a reasonable inference that CCSD considered N.A. to be a violent student at the time that CCSD placed her in a general education classroom," the panel wrote.
Lagomarsino and attorney Akke Levin, representing the school district, couldn't immediately be reached for comment.
The panel was comprised of U.S. Circuit Judges Gabriel Sanchez, a Joe Biden appointee, and Mark Bennett, a Donald Trump appointee, along with U.S. District Judge John Holcomb, a Trump appointee who sat on the three-judge panel by designation.
Source: Courthouse News Service
