Los Angeles Unified attorneys want a judge to exclude evidence of corrective measures taken at Bernstein High School from the upcoming trial of a lawsuit filed on behalf of teenage girl who witnessed the fentanyl overdose death of her friend at the school.
The Los Angeles Superior Court complaint identifies the plaintiff only as H.W. The suit contends 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 over the death of Melanie Ramos.
On Wednesday, LAUSD lawyers filed a flurry of pretrial motions in advance of the Feb. 5 trial. Among them is a request that H.W.’s attorneys be barred from telling the jury of any “remedial measures” taken by the district after Melanie died.
“Following the overdose, Bernstein implemented increased supervision measures aimed at ensuring that students remain in class and are not loitering around campus…,” according to the LAUSD attorneys’ court papers. “However, evidence of subsequent remedial measures is not admissible to prove liability.”
Specifically, the LAUSD lawyers point to the district’s enactment of a new policy at Bernstein requiring students to wear identifications, changes to the campus supervision schedule, the addition of campus aides, additional monitoring of bathrooms and areas around campus, an increase in surveillance cameras and new district policies regarding the use of Narcan.
“Here, the district implemented the above-referenced measures after (Melanie’s death), so none have any tendency in logic to prove or disprove a fact of consequence to the accident itself,” the LAUSD lawyers further contend.
In a separate motion, the LAUSD attorneys ask that H.W.’s attorneys be prevented from referring to H.W. and Melanie as “victims.”
In his July ruling denying the district’s motion to dismiss the case, Judge Steven Ellis addressed the issue of foreseeability by the school administration.
“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 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 18, in October 2023. In deposition testimony, H.W. said she and Melanie 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.
H.W. said she and Melanie went to the restroom’s handicapped stall, which was larger in space than the others, after buying the drug.
“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 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.