Lawyers delivered closing arguments in Chittenden County Superior Court Thursday in a trial over accusations that Milton town and school officials were negligent when a high school football player was sodomized at a football team dinner in October 2012.
The plaintiff, now 22, says the Town of Milton, the school board, and the school district should pay $2.5 million for failing to ensure his safety when two teammates assaulted him with pool cue in the basement of another teammate’s house.
The lawyer representing Milton officials said the behavior was clearly wrong, but told the jury the plaintiff had failed to meet the high standards required to show that the school or town was legally responsible for what happened.
The football players accused of committing the assault took plea deals years ago. A strikingly similar case in Milton drew national attention when another victim, Jordan Preavy, committed suicide a year after the assault. In that case, however, the Chittenden County Superior Court dismissed a lawsuit filed by the family against the school district — a decision the Supreme Court upheld.
Jerry O’Neill, who is representing the victim in this week’s trial, told the jury of Milton’s “renegade” football program, which had an established history of homophobia. He listed a 2009 incident that became known as the “no homo” game, a request by a student a few years later for more supervision in the team’s locker room because of the harassment he endured there, and a third incident where a student reported being suicidal because of homophobic bullying by teammates.
But the primary story O’Neill talked about in his closing argument was Preavy, who killed himself in 2012, a year after he was sodomized with a broomstick by other members of the football team, in a fashion distinctly similar to what his client experienced.
O’Neill argued the school should have foreseen that this kind of behavior would happen again and take steps to ensure no future hazing incidents occurred.
O’Neill concluded by telling the jury that he knows how demeaning it can be to put a dollar amount on the harm that his client suffered — harm that included a PTSD diagnosis, years of nightmares, and multiple suicide attempts — but noted that in cases like these, money is really all that victims can demand.
At that point, the school’s lawyer, Pietro Lynn, had the chance to rebut O’Neill’s case. Lynn led his argument with an admonishment given to him by his father when he was caught cheating on a test as a young boy. “Never ever let sympathy get in the way of doing the right thing,” he told the jury.
Lynn argued that everyone in the courtroom knew for a fact that what happened on the night of the assault was wrong. But he argued that the question being asked to jurors was whether the town and school were legally responsible for it.
To find the school liable under the law, Lynn noted, the prosecution had to prove a whole array of charges: that the victim was assaulted because he was a member of a protected class (in this case, because he was male), that the school failed to act reasonably, and that because of the assault, the victim was not able to access education in Milton.
“Those are a lot of things for them to prove,” Lynn said.
Lynn also argued that Vermont law states that schools are only responsible for supervision where they are carrying out educational functions. The dinner in question was a private event at a private home, with less than a third of the team attending, and the school neither knew about the dinner nor had a single employee present, Lynn said.
He concluded by asking the jury to remember that since the assault, the victim has been able to work, has had girlfriends, and enjoys an active social life. In his own words, he “can do everything” that he wants.
The jury began their deliberation Thursday afternoon but were unable to come to a decision before the end of the day. They will reconvene Friday morning.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Lawyers make closing arguments in Milton football assault trial.
