A California appeals court upheld a verdict ordering a Los Angeles County school district to pay $1 million to a former student who was the target of a relentless, months-long bullying campaign that included death threats.
On Friday, the El Segundo Unified School District in Los Angeles County lost its appeal of a 2022 court decision that found the district negligent in protecting Eleri Irons from “bullying, tormenting, and aggression.”
Irons, now 21, was a 13-year-old student at El Segundo Middle School when other teens began bullying her between November 2017 and June 2018.
The school district’s appeal focused on several issues, claiming Irons failed to prove any of her injuries and that it wasn’t responsible for how employees handled the issue.
The school’s lawyers also cited a state government code that removes public employees from all liability, according to Patch.
Irons “suffered PTSD, cut herself and sought refuge in the school nurse’s office nearly every lunch break” over the intense bullying, the 2019 lawsuit stated.
The harassment began after Irons’ friendship with two other classmates ended because of a love triangle.
The two girls allegedly brought in a third teen as the bullying and torment spiraled.
Irons was called “a liar, whore, cheater and boyfriend-stealer, flipped her off and made fun of her in the hallways, and even slapped her in the face. They screamed at her in person and harassed her online,” TODAY reported.
The teen was the target of a months-long campaign of verbal harassment and cruel rumors leading up to a petition spreading around the school titled “End the Life of Eleri Irons,” her attorneys from the ACTS Law said.
“This ruling confirms what the jury already knew: Eleri was failed at every level by the very people who were supposed to protect her,” attorney Christa Ramey said after the ruling.
“Instead of taking accountability and supporting this young woman’s recovery, the district chose to spend taxpayer money fighting her in court for years. That’s not leadership. That’s cowardice.”
Ramey denounced the school district’s appeal as it prolonged the case, forcing the young woman to continue reliving “one of the most traumatic periods of her life.”
School officials were first made aware of the cruel attacks when teachers learned about the petition, but didn’t stop it.
Irons’ parents approached the school’s principal, who allegedly lied about calling police as soon as she learned of the death threat in June 2018,
School officials were notified of the bullying Irons faced from herself and her family, but failed to respond to the claims.
“Despite being aware of the threats, school officials failed to take meaningful action, failed to notify her parents, and failed to follow their own anti-bullying policies,” Irons’ lawyers said.
El Segundo Unified School District
Irons’ parents confronted the alleged bullying, but school officials dismissed the concerns “as drama over a teen love triangle,” Ramey told the LA Times in 2022.
A Los Angeles jury found that the school district failed to safeguard Irons from three bullies who were the leaders of the campaign.
The three bullies were suspended for their bullying.
The school district said it would “do the right thing” after the 2022 verdict was made. It has not publicly addressed the appeals court ruling.
Irons forgave her bullies during an interview in 2018.
“I forgive them,” Irons told TODAY. “I always wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt because I (once) valued their friendship. They didn’t get the intervention they needed either. The school failed me and them.”
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