Richland One School District Faces Lawsuits
COLUMBIA – When Richland One’s new superintendent started work in August, he found his schools defending nearly a dozen lawsuits.
Court records show Allen Coles’ Richland One School District has been sued at least 40 times since Jan. 1, 2000, and there are now 10 lawsuits pending.
Mr. Coles has since launched an audit of claims to identify trends, and he’s trying to take steps to curb legal entanglements.
Those problems include a lawsuit a mother brought after her 8- year-old daughter soiled her underwear while taking the Palmetto Achievement Challenge Test. The lawsuit says the elementary school pupil was not allowed to go to the bathroom during the test.
It claims the mother was not notified and the girl was told to finish the day in her soiled clothes with her soiled underwear in a plastic bag. The mother’s lawyer, Lori S. Murray, says other pupils ridiculed the girl.
The lawsuit seeks $300,000 and an action to “ensure that other juveniles are not harmed in the manner described in this complaint,” court documents said.
The district won’t comment on that lawsuit specifically, but there is no school district policy barring pupils from using bathrooms, said Susan Williams, the district’s lawyer.
She said that for “younger children, there are clothes for them to have at the school should they have an accident.”
The lawsuit says there were no clothes for the child to change into. Ms. Murray said she’s tried to settle with the district, but it hasn’t been interested.
That lawsuit and others allege negligence in care for students. The district also is defending itself in cases involving personal injury, employment disputes, debt collection, breach of contract, motor vehicle accidents, and wrongful acts and wrongful damages.
Jasper Salmond has been on the board nearly 16 years and says the lawsuits are “no new phenomenon. We’re just a litigious society.”
Lawsuits sting districts around the state enough that they are a persistent concern.
“If you just look at public education as an institution, it’s one of the most heavily regulated institutions out there. … That, in a way, lends itself to a lot of litigation,” said Scott Price, the general counsel for the South Carolina School Boards Association.
Mr. Coles has asked the school system’s insurer, the South Carolina School Boards Insurance Trust, to perform a claims audit for the district to try to mitigate lawsuits and insurance claims.
“We want the public’s education dollars to go into the classroom rather than to legal defenses, so we are always, as a district, trying to be proactive in looking for ways to reduce our liabilities exposure,” Mr. Coles has told The (Columbia) State newspaper.
Paul Krohne, the South Carolina School Boards Association’s executive director, says such audits are routine, particularly if there seems to be a lot of claims coming in.
Mr. Krohne said audits in other districts often reveal trends in claims.