A private Studio City high school can provisionally file under seal its tentative settlement offer with a 54-year-old woman who accuses former Lakers guard and coach Byron Scott of sexually abusing her during a 1987 team event, a judge has ruled.
Burbank Superior Court Judge Lee Arian said after a Monday hearing that Campbell Hall’s settlement will remain under wraps until after the part of the case against Scott is tried and a final judgment is entered.
“Once judgment has been entered, the records will be unsealed,” the judge wrote.
Scott’s attorneys opposed the temporary sealing.
“The assertion that the press may find the amount of the settlement newsworthy does not create an overriding interest to seal the records,” Scott’s attorneys state in their court papers.
The complaint alleges sexual battery and false imprisonment. Scott, now 65, is named as a defendant along with Campbell Hall School, a K-12 independent Episcopal school. The plaintiff was 15 years old at the time of the alleged abuse and Scott was 26.
Campbell Hall attorney Eugene Egan recently informed the court that the portion of the woman’s case against the school was resolved and that a request for approval of the accord will be submitted for the judge’s review. Egan’s court papers also asked that the settlement papers be filed under seal pending a judgment. The plaintiff supported the sealing motion.
But Scott’s attorneys took a different position.
“Boiled down to its essence, (Campbell Hall) seeks to hide the amount of its settlement with plaintiff to avoid embarrassment or harm to its reputation,” Scott’s lawyers argue in their pleadings, which further state that the school previously offered the plaintiff $75,000 to resolve its part of the case.
According to the plaintiff’s suit filed in December 2022, she was in summer school at Campbell Hall in 1987 when she was sexually assaulted by Scott in a locked janitor’s closet in the school gymnasium. The Lakers were at the school to film an instructional basketball video and meet with students, parents and faculty members, according to the complaint.
But in their court papers, Scott’s attorneys stated that he believed the girl was a member of the production crew and not a student or a minor.