Byron Scott is challenging a motion by a private school to be dismissed as a co-defendant with him in a lawsuit accusing the former Lakers player and coach of sexually assaulting a girl in 1987 during a team event at her high school, when she was 15 and he was 26.
The complaint alleges sexual battery and false imprisonment. Scott, now 64, is named as a defendant along with Campbell Hall School, a private, prestigious K-12 independent Episcopal school in Studio City. Campbell Hall attorneys filed court papers in October with Judge Lee Arian asking that the school be removed as a defendant on grounds the administration had “no duty to prevent Scott’s unforeseeable third-party criminal act.”
The plaintiff’s suit states that she was attending summer school at Campbell Hall 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 in the gym and meet with students, parents and faculty members, according to the complaint.
But in court papers filed Friday, Scott’s attorneys state that he believed the girl was a member of the production crew and not a student.
“Simply stated, Scott has testified that he and plaintiff engaged in a consensual sex act where Scott reasonably believed that plaintiff was over the age of 18,” Scott’s lawyers state in their pleadings while adding that the plaintiff, 15 at the time, testified that she “hung out” with the production crew.
The encounter between the plaintiff and Scott was never told to anyone at the school and remained unreported until the 2022 lawsuit, Scott’s attorneys further state, adding that in their dismissal pleadings the Campbell Hall lawyers wrongly state that the former NBA player admitted to committing a sexual assault.
“That is completely false,” Scott’s attorneys state in their court papers while contending that the intimacy was consensual.
The Scott lawyers further state that there was a “special relationship” between Campbell Hall and the student and that there are triable issues about whether the administration should have exercised supervision over plaintiff while she was on campus and advised the film crew that a minor would be present.
Ultimately, Campbell Hall had an obligation to oversee and supervise the plaintiff until either she or the adults who were part of the film event left the premises, the Scott lawyers state in their court papers.
According to the suit filed in December 2022 alleging sexual battery and other claims, the plaintiff loved school, had many friends and had never before kissed a boy.
“That summer, her innocence was shattered and her life forever altered,” the suit states.
A hearing on the Campbell Hall dismissal motion is scheduled for Jan. 30.