A Chatsworth private school is seeking dismissal of most of the claims in a lawsuit filed by a couple who allege not enough was done to protect their daughter from a “kissing club” started by other female students who bullied and sexually assaulted the girl.
The girl, now 9 years old, is identified only as E.K. and attended Sierra Canyon School. Her parents say in their Chatsworth Superior Court lawsuit that they found out about the other students’ alleged misconduct from the parents of another girl who also was being abused.
On Thursday, school attorneys filed court papers with Judge David B. Gelfound ahead of a Dec. 16 hearing seeking dismissal of a majority of the causes of action in the suit, including negligence on its face, intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress, false advertising and fraud.
“This case arises out of a claim by Minor Plaintiff, E.K., that she and a few of her second grade classmates purportedly had unsupervised access to the girls’ bathroom on the school campus during school hours wherein the girls allegedly engaged in unacceptable and inappropriate conduct with each other that was discovered by Sierra Canyon staff,” the school attorneys’ state in their court papers. “Plaintiffs now seek to hold Sierra Canyon responsible for these students’ behavior.”
But the school lawyers argue that the plaintiffs’ court papers are replete with allegations that are “conclusory,” meaning they lack evidence and supporting facts. The claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress, for example, fails because the other girls’ alleged misconduct the behavior was not “extreme and outrageous” as required by law, the Sierra Canyon lawyers say in their pleadings.
“It is abundantly clear that plaintiffs will never be able to amend these claims to plead viable causes of actions against Sierra” and therefore the challenged claims should be tossed out, the school attorneys further contend in their court papers.
According to the suit filed Dec. 1, E.K. was repeatedly harassed and bullied by older students and the harassment ranged from name-calling to peeking through the bathroom stall while the girl used the restroom, making her afraid to use the facility.
Near the end of the 2023-24 school year, two of E.K.’s classmates were caught kissing in the bathroom and recording the act on their phone and it later came to light that many female students gathered inside the bathrooms and took part in a “Kissing Club” made up of girls ages 7 and 8, the suit further alleges.
Two of the older girls pressured, intimidated and bullied the younger ones to join the club, including E.K., the suit states.
This escalation of behavior was a result of the complete lack of supervision that allowed this club to exist for an extended period of time, giving the older girls the opportunity to further their sexual assault of E.K and others,” according to the suit.
Other news outlets report that the sexual assault included acts of a much more severe nature, not just name-calling and peeking.