May 20, 2012

Texas School Law Blog

Woo Pig! Wilbur Goes to Court

Woo Pig!  Wilbur Goes to Court By Joe Tanguma of the Walsh Anderson Firm   You may have heard a story in  the news recently of a certain Vietnamese Pot-Bellied Pig.  His name is Wilbur, but not to the neighborhood Home Owner’s Association (HOA) presiding over Wilbur’s digs—the backyard of the Sardo Family’s abode.  To [...]

Did school district have a duty to protect student from off-campus violence?

In September of 2011, this column focused on the case of a nine-year-old girl who’d allegedly been sexually abused when an adult who should have been forbidden by school policy from retrieving her from class was permitted to do so on six different occasions. At that time, a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit Court [...]

Breaking News

No “Special Relationship” Existed With the Student, Requiring the School to Protect Her From Off-Campus Sexual Assault

In a much-anticipated decision, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals sitting en banc ruled that a school district did not have a constitutional duty to protect a student from off-campus sexual assault. In Doe v. Covington County School District,  nine-year-old Jane Doe’s elementary school allegedly had a formal, compulsory check-out policy.  As part of the [...]

The Bullying Law Blog

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Parents Stated Valid Claims Stemming From Bullying That Allegedly Led To Son’s Suicide

A federal district court in Houston recently examined whether claims stemming from on-campus bullying were sufficient to withstand a motion to dismiss by the school district.  In Estate of Brown v. Ogletree, 2012 WL 591190 (S.D. Tex. 2012) (unpublished), the court held that the parents stated valid Title IX and due process claims, but dismissed [...]