Liability for Suicide When Student Is Upset by Misconduct Investigation, and Resulting “Community Pressure”
In a decision June 20 in Bruno v. Mills, R.I. Superior Court Judge Richard Licht affirmed a verdict in favor of plaintiff, whose 15-year-old son Nathan committed suicide as a result of an investigation at school. The investigation started with the son’s prank calls to a teacher (Mr. Moniz) and then led into an attempt to pressure the son into disclosing the names of two accomplices. The opinion is over 26,000 words long, so here’s just a very short excerpt. I’m particularly interested in what this means more generally for investigations, whether at high schools, in college, or even in law schools—for instance, investigations into alleged sexual misconduct, racist comments, plagiarism, other cheating, and more:
[W]hether sufficient evidence was presented that Mr. Moniz breached a standard of care as to Nathan in large part depends on the substance of Dr. Leonard’s testimony…. Dr. Leonard adequately explained the duties and conduct expected of school personnel and addressed how Mr. Moniz’s specific conduct constituted a breach thereof.
To start, Dr. Leonard explained that when a student is subject to a criminal investigation involving a school educator, the standard of care owed by school personnel includes informing the student’s at-school support system and parents of all developments and limi
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