Jane Doe v. Pasadena Unified School District

Proving that a young woman had been sexually assaulted when she was 11 years old by three classmates at a school for children with special needs was going to be difficult. After a long history of abuse dating to when she was removed from her family at age 5, she had serious psychological and emotional preexisting conditions.

Jane Doe had spent most of her life in group homes and later in a locked mental institution. So she had no family or friends to testify on her behalf.

Further, her attorneys had only one decent photo of her taken the day of the assault and only one short snippet of her videotaped deposition they deemed useful. Yet they decided to have the court declare her unavailable for trial because she was too fragile to hold up under the defense's expected four-hour cross-examination.

"The plaintiff did not testify in the trial," said David A. Rudorfer, one of her lead attorneys. "A lot of people could say that that was something that could backfire on us because we wouldn't be able to get the jury to connect with the plaintiff."

Wyatt A. Vespermann

But on Aug. 23, a 12-person jury voted unanimously that the school district had been negligent and should pay Jane Doe $12.5 million for her past pain and suffering and $13.5 million for her future pain and suffering. Her attorneys waived economic damages. Doe v. Pasadena Unified School District, BC662842 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed May 27, 2017).

"The fact that we were able to have a successful verdict in this case with a little girl who could not testify before the jury just really has a great deal of importance for other sex abuse victims," Rudorfer said. "Sex abuse victims are so scared about going to trial and getting put through a very difficult, harsh cross-examination."

He said the 2016 assault on the girl happened because her teacher and a teacher's aide left her alone with some boys who then dragged her into the bushes and pulled down her pants.

The defense denied any assault took place. "They called it sexual horseplay," said Doe's co-counsel Wyatt Vespermann.

But a couple of teachers' aides saw something, police investigated and a nurse found evidence of some vaginal trauma. The school district also investigated the incident. "Luckily, we were able to get those reports in, which showed that Jane Doe and even the assailants were confirming that there had been a sexual assault." The boys were not asked to testify.

The real fight was over damages, the attorneys said. The trauma from the assault manifested slowly. By about a year afterward, she was engaging in troubling sexual misconduct with adult men, running away and worse. "She tried to kill herself over 50 times," Vespermann said.

According to the two plaintiff's attorneys, the school's defense attorney argued in her closing that Jane Doe's psychological "fate was sealed" because of her preexisting conditions, notwithstanding any possible sexual assault.

Defense attorney Nancy Doumanian did not respond to a request to comment on the case.

Posttrial motions are pending, but Rudorfer said other school districts are already well aware of the verdict.

-- Don DeBenedictis