Civil lawsuit blames improper contact on SDSBVI
Suit says victim was not protected from peer
A current student was subjected to improper contact by another student, according to a civil lawsuit filed against the South Dakota School for the Blind and Visually Impaired.
The suit was filed by Linda Schlenker, guardian ad litem for a student who was 14 in March 2012 at the time of the alleged “multiple inappropriate contacts of a personal and private nature.”
A guardian ad litem is a person appointed by the courts to represent the interests of a child in a divorce or parental rights case.
The lawsuit names school superintendent Marjorie Kaiser, principal Mark Krogstrand, counselor Janel Ludwig and “other employees to be named” as defendants. Simply put, the lawsuit implies that administrators and workers did not take the proper precautions to protect the victim from another student, also a minor.
An attorney for Kaiser, Krogstrand, Ludwig and the employees has asked that the case be dismissed. The defendants deny the allegations. They were not “aware of a prior propensity of any student at the school to engage in sexually inappropriate contact,” according to paperwork filed by their attorney. The defendants were not responsible for unwanted contact or resulting damages, if any, according to the response to the complaint.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages to be determined by a jury to compensate the victim for emotional distress, mental anguish and other personal anguish.
According to the complaint, the victim was blind and autistic, and the improper contact was perpetrated by a single student. The dorms were under the direction and supervision of the defendants, according to the lawsuit, which also says school workers failed to follow handbook procedures or properly monitor the victim and the perpetrator.
School officials should have known the propensity of the other student to commit inappropriate acts, yet left the two students alone together, the lawsuit claims.
A court hearing set for this week was canceled. No next court date has been set.
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