Anchorage Daily News

The Anchorage School District and its insurance company paid $4.5 million to settle a lawsuit filed by the family of a middle-school student who attempted suicide after bullying at school.

Superintendent Carol Comeau released the previously sealed settlement Wednesday, a day after the district received a court order directing it to make the document public. Comeau said that she believes the district is not responsible for the boy's attempted suicide and that it settled the case because its insurer, First Specialty Insurance, required the district to do so.

The company paid $3.5 million of the settlement. The district paid $1 million -- the amount it is self-insured for -- out of its general fund.

"This case, we consider it to be a tragedy," Comeau said. "But I will say unequivocally we were prepared to go to trial and we don't believe our staff erred in any way."

Comeau said anti-bullying policies existed at Central Middle School when the boy started seventh grade and remained in place when he entered eighth grade in fall 1998. The staff knew the boy had problems with other students and worked with him to help him feel safe, she said. He was told to signal staff members if he felt threatened and was allowed to eat lunch in a classroom if he felt intimidated in the cafeteria, Comeau said.

Until Wednesday, district officials had declined to discuss the case in detail, citing the confidential settlement. That settlement came to light last winter when the family's attorney, Dennis Maloney, mentioned it in a press release advertising an anti-bullying conference he later hosted.

The Daily News wrote an article about the boy in February and asked the district to reveal the settlement terms, citing a 1989 Alaska Supreme Court decision holding that the public has a right to know terms of settlements that involve public money. The district asked the court for clarification, and the Daily News intervened in that action.

Comeau received Superior Court Judge Sen Tan's order Tuesday afternoon that the settlement be made public. Comeau said the order "is going to impact the way we move forward" with cases in the future.

The district may appeal Judge Tan's order, Comeau said. It has 30 days to do so.

Comeau has said the district occasionally settles cases confidentially to protect the privacy of students, parents and staff members. Howard Trickey, the district's attorney, said he thought the 1989 Supreme Court decision still allowed secret settlements when privacy rights of individuals are involved, particularly those of minors, where federal privacy laws may play a role.

The Daily News has requested the district also make public its other sealed settlements.

"I think the plan is to provide notice to parents of other cases that have been settled that if they don't object, those cases will be unsealed," Trickey said.

The family in the Central Middle School case has asked that their son be identified only by his first name, Tom. According to documents and sworn depositions in the family's lawsuit, Tom was gifted in math and science but socially awkward.

His mother testified that she told doctors that her son "has been under lots of emotional stress at school" and "has no friends and is teased often at school."

Maloney, the family's attorney, said Tom's awkwardness invited teasing. But that doesn't relieve the district of responsibility, Maloney said.

"The School District was so at fault in this case that they settled this case," Maloney said. "I'm sorry this thing ever happened and I'm sorry for the family, and I never want another case like this because it's just too sad."

Comeau said the school did all it could to help the boy. Staff members offered him a transfer at the end of his seventh-grade year, but the family declined, she said.

Comeau said there was no evidence that one or more specific students were repeatedly harassing the boy. Incidents of tripping, pushing and name-calling involved various students, and sometimes Tom instigated situations, she said. Staff investigated every incident, and students found to have harassed or bullied him were disciplined, Comeau said.

Tom was sometimes disciplined too, under the district's zero-tolerance policy that says any one involved with a fight may be punished.

"I do expect (staff), if they can, to find out who the aggressors are," Comeau said.

The day before Tom attempted suicide, he received an in-school suspension following an incident with another student in a hallway.

Maloney, the family's attorney, said Tom had been pushed and told his mother that a teacher saw it happen, so he shouldn't get suspended.

"An hour later his dad got a call and said he was going to be suspended," Maloney said, in an interview Wednesday.

Comeau said when staff members deal with conflicting stories from students, it's hard to know what really happened. She said her staff behaved appropriately by giving the boy an in-school suspension. That means the student spends the entire school day in one room, doing his or her work.

On Nov. 6, 1998, Tom tried to hang himself at home. He had no pulse when paramedics arrived, and they started CPR. Fifteen minutes later, they got his heart going. He had already suffered extensive, irreversible brain damage.

Tom's condition today is unchanged. He wears diapers, is fed through a tube and knows only a few words.

His family sued the School District in 2000, charging that school employees didn't do enough to stop the bullying. The family initially asked for $33 million for lifetime care for their son.

Trickey said that, because the case involved a brain injury, the district was contractually obligated to let its insurance company decide whether the case should go to trial. The company chose to settle.

A mediation process determined the final settlement amount.

There's disagreement on who requested it be secret. Trickey says the family requested the settlement be confidential, while Maloney has said the district did.

"For us to be characterized as always demanding confidential settlements, I object to that," Comeau said. "Because that is not the case."

Trickey said he thinks the district would have won the case in a trial. He said the district could show it had a strong anti-bullying program in place, complete with consequences for harassing other students. School officials could show they tried to help the boy, he said.

"The (school), in effect, had this boy on a radar screen," Trickey said. "The tragedy of the (attempted) suicide is something no one foresaw. No one will ever exactly understand why he did it."

Daily News reporter Katie Pesznecker can be reached at kpesznecker@adn.com.