Judge to Decide If Student Who Witnessed Friend’s Fentanyl OD Death Can Sue LAUSD

A judge indicated he is poised to allow a teenage girl who witnessed the 2022 fentanyl overdose death of her friend and fellow student to take her lawsuit against Los Angeles Unified to trial, but he did not immediately rule.

Instead, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Steven A. Ellis took the case of the plaintiff, identified only as H.W., under submission on Monday. The plaintiff’s suit alleges the school administration should have looked for her when she missed her last class of the day at Bernstein High School and that her own ingestion of fentanyl has left her with learning problems and survivor’s guilt.

“There is evidence in the record that would allow a (jury) to determine that LAUSD knew or should have known about the use of drugs on campus and that LAUSD did not act reasonably in the supervision of the students on the Bernstein campus in light of this actual or constructive knowledge,” the judge wrote in a tentative ruling.

In addition, a jury could “reasonably determine based on the evidence in the record, including two medical emergencies involving drug use in the first 19 days of the school year, that there was a serious problem with the use of illegal drugs on the Bernstein campus,” according to Ellis.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of H.W., now 17, in October 2023. In deposition testimony, H.W. said she and her friend, Melanie Ramos, believed that a dealer they encountered named Angel was selling them Percocet, a pain medication. Melanie, then 15, later died of a fentanyl overdose and her mother, Elena Perez, has filed a separate suit against the LAUSD.

“Let me know if you need more,” Angel said after the girls paid him, according to H.W.

H.W. said she and Melanie went to the restroom’s handicapped stall, which was larger in space than the others.

“We talked a little bit and then we crushed it up and we put it in, like, the lines and we did the pills,*”H.W. further said, adding that a cash app card or something similar was used for crushing.

H.W. said she later fell asleep and that when she awakened she saw a listless Melanie and touched her in an attempt to awaken her as well.

“And then I realized, like, a little bit that she was, like, gone,” H.W. said.

H.W. said she crawled to an electrical outlet to charge her phone and called her mother, who H.W. said was “freaking out on the phone.” She further said that shortly thereafter, she encountered her stepfather at the school and that she told him about Melanie. She said her stepfather picked her up, took her to the restroom and then set her on the floor, but that she doesn’t remember much about what happened in the restroom after that.

H.W. said her stepfather later brought her to his car and asked if she wanted to go to the hospital.

“I said I was fine and I was lying,” according to H.W., who further said her stepfather had her taken to the hospital by ambulance anyway. H.W. said she had never heard of fentanyl before that day.