TIGARD, Ore — Warning: Some details of this article may be disturbing to readers.
A student in the Tigard-Tualatin School District has filed a lawsuit against the district alleging that she was raped by another student at Tualatin High School. The lawsuit accuses the district of negligence for allowing the incident to occur and seeks just under $3.7 million in combined economic and non-economic damages.
The lawsuit, first reported by The Oregonian, was filed through one of the student's parents and keeps her identity anonymous. It alleges that the student was sexually assaulted and raped in a gender-neutral bathroom at Tualatin High School by another student in April of last year.
The lawsuit claims that the district should have been aware of the accused perpetrator's "behaviors and proclivities" but they failed to supervise him, and that the district should have known that the student "presented a risk to other students." It also alleges that the district "was aware since 2016 that the Tualatin High School campus was rife with sexual assaults."
The lawsuit also faults the district for a lack of supervision both in general and around the bathroom specifically, stating that many students had been allowed to move around the school's hallways unsupervised that day, and that the district "knew or should have known that an unsupervised room that locks from within presents an unreasonable condition for rape to occur."
According to the complaint, the female student had a physical or emotional impairment that made her vulnerable and more susceptible to force, threats or coercion.
"Specifically, a condition existed such that (she) lacked cognitive and functional abilities to understand and/or appreciate that she had the right not to be abused, sexually assaulted, and raped by others," the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit lists damages that the student suffered including emotional injury, mental anguish, embarrassment, shame, fear, lack of focus, isolation, displacement from school and peers, nightmares, sleep disruption, mistrust of others, lack of self-esteem, PTSD, depression, anxiety and psychological trauma and seeks $1.2 million in non-economic damages as well as $31,721 in medical costs and $60,000 for potential future treatment, along with other demands totaling a potential $3,691,721 overall.
