Los Angeles Unified attorneys want a judge to allow them to amend their answer to a lawsuit filed on behalf of teenage girl who witnessed the fentanyl overdose death of her friend at a school so as to claim a $250,000 limit on pain and suffering damages.
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 Monday, LAUSD lawyers filed additional pretrial motions with Judge Lisa Jaskol in advance of the Feb. 5 trial. Among them is a request that their answer to H.W.’s complaint be revised in accordance with the Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act, a 1975 law capping non-economic damages at $250,000. The attorneys say the law applies based on “various witnesses and evidence throughout this litigation.”
The LAUSD lawyers also state that during discovery they learned that “certain conduct” took place off-campus and after school hours, outside of the district’s scope of liability. The attorneys they say they intend to confirm such facts at the upcoming deposition of an emergency room doctor who treated H.W. and obtained a statement from her on the day Melanie died.
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. 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.