RIVERSIDE, Calif. (Legal Newsline) – Victims of sexual assault can’t pursue damages in court against public agencies above what would compensate them for their injuries.
The California Fourth Appellate District made that ruling for such cases in the state, rejecting arguments from a plaintiff who sought treble (triple) damages against the Hesperia Unified School District.
A Maple Elementary School student sued HUSD, claiming he was sexually assaulted by one of its employees and that HUSD had covered up a prior assault by the same employee.
HUSD said sovereign immunity shielded it from damages intended to punish it, even in cases of sexual assault. The plaintiff said he could pursue treble damages if the assault was the result of a previous cover up.
Treble damages would be the type of punishment prevented by sovereign immunity, Justice Marsha Slough wrote.
“(E)ven if there were some indication in the statutory text or legislative history that the treble damages provision was enacted for this incentivizing purpose, there’s nothing to suggest that purpose is more prevalent than the provision’s punitive and exemplary purpose,” Slough wrote.
“In other words (and as was the case with the compensatory purpose), we cannot conclude an incentivizing purpose is the provision’s primary purpose, which is what section 818 plainly requires in tort actions.”
The March 2019 lawsuit said Pedro Martinez, a janitor at the school, sexually molested the plaintiff while he was in first grade in bathrooms and classrooms during school hours.
Martinez lured students into empty classrooms with candy and videos to get them to sit on his lap and sexually assault them, the lawsuit says. It claims HUSD employees knew this was happening but failed to supervise Martinez.
School employees also knew Martinez had molested another first-grader two years earlier, but the child’s outcries were taken as excuses to get out of class, the suit says.
But a trial court decision striking the treble damages request has now been affirmed.
“The rationale behind section 818’s immunity is that the twin goals of punitive damages—retribution and deterrence—are not actually advanced if the defendant is a public agency and the tort is committed by an individual employee,” Slough wrote.
Only in antitrust and organized crime lawsuits are treble damages not found to be solely punitive, the decision says.