School district calls 12-year-old rape victim ‘negligent’ and ‘careless’ in her own abuse

School district calls 12-year-old rape victim ‘negligent’ and ‘careless’ in her own abuse

The Moraga School District in Moraga, California alleged that a 12-year-old girl, who suffered prolonged sexual abuse at the hands of two different middle school teachers in the 1990s, was “negligent,” “careless” and “was herself responsible for the acts and damages of which she claims.”

Kristen Cunnane, now 30, told the Contra Costa Times on Friday, “It felt like I got punched in the stomach, and I stood up and thought about how young I was when I was 12 to 13 years old at the school.”

The school district issued a statement, saying, “We certainly empathize with Ms. Cunnane and did not intend to cause her further distress in filing our formal Answer to her Complaint. However, this is a significant case that could have serious consequences for our school district. She is demanding several million dollars in damages. As a result, at this point in the proceedings we have an obligation not to waive any potential legal lines of defense. … Ms. Cunnane and the media have seized on only one of the nine potential areas and over-exaggerated its importance.”

That's a pretty astonishing assertion to make against a 12 year old victim.

:shk:

Originally posted by loam


The school district issued a statement, saying, “We certainly empathize with Ms. Cunnane and did not intend to cause her further distress in filing our formal Answer to her Complaint. However, this is a significant case that could have serious consequences for our school district. She is demanding several million dollars in damages. As a result, at this point in the proceedings we have an obligation not to waive any potential legal lines of defense. … Ms. Cunnane and the media have seized on only one of the nine potential areas and over-exaggerated its importance.”

In other words...to translate their double speak...if you blame us for what we said we are going to say the lawyers made us say it and we had to say it because if we don't say it you might win the lawsuit you have against us. But we are going to say it, so sorry for the up yours.

That's what that says...

reply to post by Valhall

Originally posted by Valhall
That's what that says...

Indeed it does.

Pretty distasteful.

So they are going all Mitt Romney on her huh?

If its within their best intrest to tell the mother and daughter to go $^&% off they will. You know that people that raped your daughter... well we have a buisness to run.

It seems to me that this is a necessary evil in defence.

The school would have to make all attempts to prevent the loss of finances. That's pretty obvious.
As a part of their defence, one of the arguments is detailed. Yes, it might be disgusting, it might be unfair and make little sense, but this is standard legal defence against accusations. As they stated, it's one of nine possible defence arguments, it doesn't mean a jury is gonna buy that for one second!

Although I agree that it's not right, I can understand the point of this and agree that the media is blowing it out of all proportion. The defence team HAS to use all methods they can to defend against the case, otherwise they are not doing their job. This is just one of those avenues of defence.

I think there are just a lot of people who cannot understand this and jumping on the band wagon.

She and her family did nothing for 18 years, meanwhile she was being raped/molested for 4 of those years? I get the impression it wasn't such a big deal until the possibility of money came into the picture (extortion maybe). It seems like that, or at least a lot of stupid being involved on both sides.

Not defending anyone; the whole situation stinks IMO.