Los Angeles Unified attorneys are asking a judge to order the depositions of a 19-year-old former North Hollywood High School student and his mother in litigation alleging the school did not do enough to protect the teen from another pupil who bullied him and threatened on video to kill him.
The plaintiff is identified only as E.G. and his mother as Ana G. in the Los Angeles Superior Court negligence lawsuit. The plaintiff suffered severe physical and emotional injuries that required his placement in a psychiatric ward, according to the complaint, which further states that his mother alleges the school refused to develop a safety plan for her son and that the assailant violated a temporary restraining order to stay away from E.G.
On Thursday, LAUSD attorneys filed court papers with Judge Joseph Lipner in advance of a Feb. 3 hearing asking that E.G. and Ana G. be compelled to give depositions given that six months of trying to get them to agree to do so have failed. In July, an attorney for the plaintiff said he was in treatment in Pennsylvania and would not be available for a deposition for months, according to the district’s attorneys, who are also seeking $3,850 in sanctions to compensate for the time lost.
“These delays have prevented (the) district from obtaining critical testimony regarding plaintiff’s allegations, injuries (and) claimed damages,” the LAUSD lawyers contend in their court papers.
According to the lawsuit, the harassment of E.G. by the other student and the latter’s friends began in October 2023. The perpetrator had a known history of aggressive and violent behavior at the school and only the intervention of a district security officer prevented him from assaulting the plaintiff one day as he headed to his fifth-period class, the suit states.
But days later, the other student and his companions punched E.G. and knocked him to the ground not far from campus, the suit states. The aggressor also kicked E.G. and threatened to kill him and the entire attack was videotaped, according to the suit.
Ana G. reported what happened to the police after the school administration allegedly refused to do so. When E.G. returned to school he was “tormented, threatened, bullied and harassed” and at the same time videos of his off-campus attack surfaced at the school, the suit states.
E.G. was hospitalized at a UCLA medical facility due to his severe anxiety, the suit states. Although the administration was aware of the other student’s aggressive behavior toward E.G., no safety plan or stay-away order was put in place and the plaintiff continued to be bullied and tormented by his assailant, who slapped E.G. on one side of his head and also threw a trash can at him, the suit states.
The second attack also was videotaped, shared with other students and posted online, according to the suit. Both the plaintiff and his assailant were briefly suspended and restraining orders obtained on behalf of E.G. did not deter the other student from continuing his alleged aggressive behavior toward him, the suit further states.
“Plaintiff was forced to move to a different school so that he could receive an education as promised by the California Constitution,” the suit filed in June 2024 states.