Get a load of this… Parents got a 2.4 million trust while their son who is the one with autism… got a 1.6 million trust. The oveseer for their son’s public education for the next 2 years gets 1.1 million; and the icing on the cake…mom is a paralegal…guess where she works, her lawfirm only got a paltry 1.7 million. :-(
Woowee….this is scary….where is all this $$ coming from???
District Settles With Family
Manhattan Beach schools to pay millions in case involving special education student.
By Jean Merl, Times Staff Writer
The Manhattan Beach school district and the state education department have agreed to pay more than $6.7 million to settle a long-running legal battle with the family of an autistic special education student.
The settlement agreement, approved last week by a federal district court judge, resolves the case that began in 1999, when Deborah and John Porter claimed that the Manhattan Beach Unified School District had failed to provide their son with a “free and appropriate public education” as required by state law.
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The state’s special education hearing office found that the 6,500-student district had failed the Porters’ son in reading and language instruction and in socialization interventions and ordered the district to make corrections.
The Porters filed suit in U.S. District Court in 2000, claiming the district was dragging its feet in providing compensatory services.
This month’s settlement followed a December 2004 decision by U.S. District Court Judge Gary Allen Feess, who said it appeared the school district “has endeavored to use the power it has … as a means of retaliating against the Porters” for their criticism and lawsuit. He found the state Department of Education had failed to oversee the district’s actions in the Porter case.
Deborah Porter, a paralegal for the law firm that handled her case, could not be reached for comment Thursday, but issued a statement through the law office’s public relations firm.
“No amount of money can compensate for the school district’s deliberate failure to provide an appropriate education at a crucial point in our son’s life,” she said in the statement. “This will provide for his future well-being, and we also hope this will force this school district, and all school districts, to do the right thing for other children.”
The Porters have asked that their 17-year-old son not be identified, as he still attends Mira Costa High School in the district. He has been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder.
School district officials, in a statement issued Thursday, said the district “takes very seriously its legal obligations to this student and to the district’s entire special needs community, and is committed to ensuring that each and every student with a disability receives a free and appropriate public education.”
Supt. Gwen Gross, who joined the district three years after the suit was filed, said she believes the district has made great strides in improving its special education program in the last couple of years.
“It’s important we move forward, and I think we are doing that,” Gross said in an interview. She said the district had “worked very diligently and collaboratively” with the family and its attorneys over the last several months to reach a settlement.
The agreement calls for the Manhattan Beach district and the California Department of Education to pay nearly $1.6 million for a special needs trust for the student and almost $2.4 million for a trust for his parents.
An additional $1.1 million is being spent on a court-appointed special master to oversee the student’s education through June 2007, and the remainder of the settlement amount, nearly $1.7 million, goes to the Torrance law firm that represented the family, Wyner & Tiffany, according to the school district.
The district expects two of its insurance funds to pick up $4.4 million of its share of the settlement, with the state responsible for nearly $1.3 million. The district’s remaining obligation of about $1 million can be paid over five years and should not significantly affect its annual operating budget, Gross said.
Steven Wyner, a partner in the firm that specializes in representing students with disabilities, said in an interview Thursday he believes the settlement amount is a record payment in a special education case.
“We’re hopeful that our action on behalf of one student will benefit many others,” Wyner said. He noted the case has prompted the district to revamp its special education programs.
Re: District shells out 6.7 million to settle Autism lawsuit
Welp, what’s *wrong* with it is it happened in the first place, especially since it’s happening to a whole mess of other people who aren’t getting compensated.
yeah...been on both sides Dad...but...money only goes so far
In California there are these shark attorney’s who are literally bleeding special education dry. They usually come out of the same firms…and the districts are just scrambling to keep up with the outrageous demands of the attorneys and lawsuits.
The attorney’s ideas of FAPE are Ferrari’s and all the districts can afford are economy educations…Some kids because the parents have attorney’s are getting 100K education per year for their children…while others like me pulled their kid out of school and took care of the problem for a lot less with the same results…
FAPE is different for each and every child but when I see things like this a 2.4 million trust fund for the parents…it just doesn’t sound right to me.
Re: District shells out 6.7 million to settle Autism lawsuit
Unfortunately what the school folks learn is **not** that they should follow the law. THe system is, simply, not self-correcting.
What they learn is that they need more lawyers themselves, and to find more creative ways of looking like they’re answering the letter of the law.
Re: District shells out 6.7 million to settle Autism lawsuit
>In California there are these shark attorney’s who are literally bleeding special education dry<
Yes and they work for the school districts NOT the parents!
Lozano Smith racked up over 5 million $ worth of legal fees and dragged a case on for 5 years when all the student wanted was $8000 for some comp ed!
East Palo Alto/Menlo Park district hired the Weatherly firm to fight a case against the state DOE that cost them 2 mill in legal fees when in fact that was the amount they needed to prove to the state that they were solvent.
In the manhatten beach case, the parents went to Due Process without an attorney and still won, which rarely happens. However the district hired a lawyer and lost. It just goes to prove how bad the district really was.
My district filed due process against me and incurred tons of legel fees because they refused to mediate with me and were trying to avoid a state compliance complaint! I had to go hire a lawyer and they had to pay for it because they refused to be reasonable or even mediate.
Yes, the lawyers win because the districts won’t even negotiate with the parents or comply with the law. ..
Not where I live..
Been on both sides of the fence…and it is usually the same piranahs names I see over and over again.
Re: District shells out 6.7 million to settle Autism lawsuit
One explanation is that law has become a highly specialized field, and those attourneys who can successfully beat city hall get their names in the headlines which brings other clients to them because of the notoriety of their success.
Whether or not any specific attourney is especially successful, vicious or expensive is less important to the underlying problem than whether the cases being brought are valid. If the complaint is found to be true, the school gets whatever they get.
I do agree it is a shame that the school district (which after all cannot make any decisions for right or wrong) pays the price. I think that the persons makiong the bad decisions should face their own cost of defense/civil penalty (i.e. the Withers Decision) and not reap the benefit of using tax-payer funded legal teams (who often make as much as the plaintiff’s “shark” even when they fight a pathetically losing defense). There have been numerous cases (some in CA) where school districts have spent literally millions of dollars over several years fighting a inherrantly losing battle to try and avoid paying for a special service that would have cost less than $50K. That is no way to run a business.
Autism Suit
The money for this absurdity will obviously come out of the guts of our public education system. I fear this isn’t about service but about GREED - in a society gone so litigious that it’s mad. Even in systems as large as LA’s, there isn’t enough money legislated to provide FAPE to all - it’s legislated but rarely funded. Judges and juries ruling like this are a crying shame. Ken
Scary? Not really. A wasteful use of funds due to bone-headed, arrogant obstinance on the part of the aforementioned district? Absolutely!
Part of the money will be paid out from the District’s insurance (what that does to their premiums and/or policy remains to be seen). The balance will come from the general fund for the district.
Please note that the parents tried to resolve the situation using in-house channels, and along the way they were found to be in the right, yet the school district continued to refuse to following the decision of the State’s Hearing officer. This could have been resolved for the cost of providing FAPE.
The punitive damages were proper because it was the parents whop bore the psychological toll of the continued fight. You think the law firm’s legal fees are wrong? How much money has CA LEA’s and State Office thrown away on their own legal fees fighting losing battles?
Sometimes it takes big awards like this to demonstrate to the entrenched powers that this is indeed serious business and they need to follow the law, abide by decisions and refrain from retaliating when they are found to be in the wrong.
The only thing I see as wrong in this is that the individuals who made all the bad choices were not found to be liable for the civil penalties. THAT would truly be justice.