Boy Awarded $6.9 Million In Teacher Sexual Molestation Case
The Los Angeles Unified School District must pay $6.9 million to a 14-year-old boy sexually molested by his elementary school teacher, a jury ruled Tuesday.
A jury found the district liable for repeated molestation of the student when he was in fifth grade in 2008 and 2009 by teacher Forrest Stobbe at Queen Anne Elementary School, the Los Angeles Times reported. He began molesting the boy in October 2008, when the then 10-year-old was his student, and continued to abuse him through the following July, when Stobbe was arrested.
In September 2011, Stobbe pleaded no contest to two counts of lewd act on a child and to continuous sexual abuse of a child younger than 14. He currently serves a 16-year sentence in prison.
The civil lawsuit circulated around the liability of the district and the plaintiff's attorneys argued that school administrators should have taken note of the complains about Stobbe that preceded the molestation. However, in their defense, school officials argued that Stobbe had a clean criminal record and that there was no evidence known to the district that the teacher posed a threat.
"We take our duty to protect our students seriously and are continually looking for ways that we can strengthen our screening and reporting processes to ensure that no child is ever hurt in this way," said general counsel David Holmquist. "Although we can't change what happened in this case, we remain committed to doing everything in our power to promote healing and improve trust with those impacted."
The $6.9 million award is among the largest for a single victim in the history of the district.
The L.A. Unified faces close to 200 pending molestation and lewd conduct charges arising from another teacher's conduct at Miramonte Elementary School, according to The Associated Press.