Setting the facts straight about lawsuit against school district
There seems to be a great deal of misconceptions around the community dealing with the issue of a lawsuit filed against the School District by Mr. Guy Fischer because of the alleged failure by the district to deal with issues pertaining to the harassment of his son.
We discussed this briefly last week, but again in yesterday’s Davis Enterprise, Richard Hogan of Davis writes, “This lawsuit will have a direct impact on my purse. With a child attending school in the Davis school district, I will be required to compensate for the loss in funding…. I will pay in the end.”
The suggestion has been made that the district would pay out potentially the $100,000 that Mr. Fischer is suing for plus lawyer fees and that this would take money from the school district's budget that would otherwise go for learning and education. While I am still trying to get a hold of the school district (I think they are out for the winter break, so this may have to wait until January), my understanding is that most government agencies have an insurance pool for such cases. A number of entities will buy into the pool for insurance against such lawsuits. They may have to pay a deductible. However, the bulk of the costs are paid by the insurance pool and not directly from educational funds. So the direct effect of this lawsuit on Mr. Hogan’s child’s education is not going to be noticeable.
Mr. Hogan then closes his letter with: “This is what happens in a sue-happy world. Enough already!”
We all hate frivolous lawsuits, but with all due respect to Mr. Hogan and his opinions—how dare he judge the merits of Mr. Fischer’s case on the basis of a single article in a newspaper? We have a legal process where the facts will come out and a jury after hearing those facts will determine if Mr. Fischer and his son have been wronged and if they are entitled to compensation for their wrongs.
As suggested in last week’s blog, if people are so concerned about the district having to pay out money in lawsuits, perhaps they ought to take action and put pressure on the district to be more responsive when situations like these arise.
---Doug Paul Davis reporting
There seems to be a great deal of misconceptions around the community dealing with the issue of a lawsuit filed against the School District by Mr. Guy Fischer because of the alleged failure by the district to deal with issues pertaining to the harassment of his son.
We discussed this briefly last week, but again in yesterday’s Davis Enterprise, Richard Hogan of Davis writes, “This lawsuit will have a direct impact on my purse. With a child attending school in the Davis school district, I will be required to compensate for the loss in funding…. I will pay in the end.”
The suggestion has been made that the district would pay out potentially the $100,000 that Mr. Fischer is suing for plus lawyer fees and that this would take money from the school district's budget that would otherwise go for learning and education. While I am still trying to get a hold of the school district (I think they are out for the winter break, so this may have to wait until January), my understanding is that most government agencies have an insurance pool for such cases. A number of entities will buy into the pool for insurance against such lawsuits. They may have to pay a deductible. However, the bulk of the costs are paid by the insurance pool and not directly from educational funds. So the direct effect of this lawsuit on Mr. Hogan’s child’s education is not going to be noticeable.
Mr. Hogan then closes his letter with: “This is what happens in a sue-happy world. Enough already!”
We all hate frivolous lawsuits, but with all due respect to Mr. Hogan and his opinions—how dare he judge the merits of Mr. Fischer’s case on the basis of a single article in a newspaper? We have a legal process where the facts will come out and a jury after hearing those facts will determine if Mr. Fischer and his son have been wronged and if they are entitled to compensation for their wrongs.
As suggested in last week’s blog, if people are so concerned about the district having to pay out money in lawsuits, perhaps they ought to take action and put pressure on the district to be more responsive when situations like these arise.
---Doug Paul Davis reporting
