A former water polo teammate of a Black onetime student who is suing Harvard-Westlake School, alleging he was subjected to repeated incidents of sexual assault and racial attacks and whipped with exercise bands in the weight room, is asking a judge to strike portions of the plaintiff’s complaint as prejudicial.
Aidan Romain’s Alhambra Superior Court lawsuit targets the Studio City school, its president, Romain’s former coach and ex-teammate Lucca Van Der Woude. The abuse was not spontaneous, according to the suit, but was instead part of a longtime culture in which violence and humiliation were made normal and enabled through the school’s coaching staff and administration.
“The Legislature has erected the strongest possible confidentiality protections around juvenile court proceedings and records, Van Der Woude’s attorneys contend in court papers filed Tuesday with Judge Lauren A. R. Lofton in advance of an Aug. 6 hearing. “Plaintiff has chosen to weaponize those records, attaching them as exhibits to a publicly filed verified complaint.”
As a former student who was himself a minor, Romain is not permitted, as a third party, to publicly disclose the substance of another student’s educational or disciplinary records in a civil pleading without authorization and thereby prejudice Van Der Woude’s defense, according to the Van Der Woude lawyers’ court papers.
The complaint also contains “groundless and irrelevant references” to highly disparaging comments and news articles, according to the Van Der Woude lawyers’ pleadings, which further asking that Romain’s request for punitive damages be stricken because his claims are conclusory and without supporting evidence.
In his lawsuit, Romain alleges that from August 2022 until February 2024, while a minor, he was sexually assaulted, harassed and humiliated by Van Der Woude and other Harvard-Westlake water polo teammates, often in the presence of Harvard-Westlake employees. Van Der Woude’s alleged misconduct occurred in the weight room and under the pool water surface, the suit further states.
Romain and Van Der Woude are both now adults and have left Harvard-Westlake.
Attorneys for the school, water polo coach Jack Grover and school President Richard B. Commons stated in their previous court papers that Romain’s claims for negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress and civil rights violations are not supported. The lawyers said that the only allegations concerning the president are that he was previously a headmaster at another school where sexual abuse allegedly took place between students.
No “extreme and outrageous conduct” was taken by Grover toward Romain that would justify the intentional infliction of emotional distress claim and the civil rights violation allegation against Grover, according to the same defendants’ attorneys’ pleadings.
Romain does not allege that Harvard-Westlake employees heard any alleged racial abuse and although he contends that he told his coach about one alleged racist epithet, his only complaint is that he was dissatisfied with the lack of discipline of the other student, according to the same defendants’ attorneys’ court papers.