Jane Doe No. 53 et. al. v. The School Board of Monroe County, Florida

Dirk M. Smits, Esq. and Scott C. Black, Esq. (Florida Keys) (Government/Education – Title IX) won summary judgment on behalf of The School Board of Monroe County, Florida in Federal District Court in the Southern District of Florida. This high-profile claim was reported and followed in local newspapers, concerned allegations by a former elementary school student that school officials did not adequately respond to her complaints that she was being sexually harassed by another student. The Complaint included counts for Violation of Title IX/Education Amendments of 1972, Negligence, and Loss of Consortium. The Title IX count presented substantial exposure resulting from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals position that Congress abrogated state sovereign immunity caps, exposing the School Board to potentially unlimited/non-capped damages. The Plaintiffs were seeking more than $1 million dollars in damages, but reduced their demand to $575,000. The case was aggressively litigated and vigorously defended with twenty-three (23) depositions and numerous motions and hearings necessitated by plaintiff’s demands and posturing. We successfully developed the defense to establish that Plaintiff’s claims were largely unsupported. For example, while Plaintiff testified in her deposition that she was harassed every day, her well-documented prior inconsistent statements proved this testimony to be inaccurate. Given the weight of unfavorable evidence, their attorneys, a well-known sexual harassment/Title IX plaintiff’s firm, withdrew from the litigation. The Plaintiffs eventually notified the Court that they would proceed pro se. Thereafter, a comprehensive motion for summary judgment was drafted seeking dismissal of all counts. Magistrate Judge Jonathan Goodman wrote a 23-page R&R that recommended granting summary judgment on all counts, and it was adopted by Judge Jose Martinez. Vernis & Bowling successfully obtained summary judgment for The School Board of Monroe County.