Sexual Assault and Abuse

Published on: October 3, 2024

Sexual Assault by Teacher Verdict Upheld in California

Californians who have been the victim of childhood sexual abuse at schools, churches, or other institutions that have authority over children may have grounds to pursue civil claims against the perpetrators and the institutions that allowed the abuse to occur. In A.H. v. Tamalpais Union High School Dist., Cal. Ct. App. Case No. A165493, A166684, the Court of Appeal found that a school district could be liable for childhood sexual abuse perpetrated by a high school coach because the district should have known the man had a propensity to commit the act based on a pattern of previous conduct.

Factual and Procedural Case Background

A.H. attended Tamalpais High School from 2000 to 2004, graduating in 2004. While in high school, he played on the tennis team, which was coached by Normandie Burgos, a physical education teacher and coach. Burgos had been hired by the school in 1998.

Published on: December 11, 2023

Los Angeles Juvenile Hall Sexual Abuse Victim’s Attorney

by Steven M. Sweat

Los-Angeles-Juvenile-Hall-Sexual-Abuse-Attorneys

Many people who went through California’s juvenile justice system and were housed in various juvenile detention facilities were victimized. Unfortunately, these facilities failed to protect detainees from sexual abuse in some cases. Because of some new legislation, the statute of limitations for pursuing civil sexual abuse lawsuits has been extended, allowing victims to come forward and pursue justice through civil sexual abuse lawsuits. If you were victimized while being detained in a juvenile detention center in California, you might be entitled to financial compensation for your losses under the newly amended law. The experienced and compassionate civil sexual abuse lawyers at the law firm of Steven M. Sweat, Personal Injury Lawyers, APC are dedicated to helping victims achieve justice and holding abusers and the facilities that employed them accountable for their wrongful actions.

Prevalence of Sexual Abuse in California Juvenile Detention Facilities

The sexual abuse of minors in juvenile detention facilities in California has been a well-documented problem for years. Multiple lawsuits have been filed against the perpetrators and the facilities that employed them. For example, the Los Angeles Times reported on a lawsuit filed by 20 women who were allegedly sexually abused while detained at Camp Scott in Los Angeles County. The lawsuit alleged that at least 10 officers subjected the women to sexual assaults while they were minors between 1996 and 2008. In one case, the victim was impregnated by a juvenile officer while she was a teenager.

Published on: October 28, 2021

Catholic Diocese of Los Angeles Liable for Sexual Abuse Even Absent Prior Knowledge of Abuser

by Steven M. Sweat

The widespread problem of clergy sexual abuse of children within the Catholic church has been well-documented and broadly reported in the news media over the last couple of decades. People who are the victims of sexual assault can pursue compensation through civil sexual assault lawsuits. The California Court of Appeal recently considered a case in which the trial court found that the Archdiocese did not have a duty to protect a minor during the late 1980s because of its lack of knowledge about a priest’s past misconduct in Doe v. Roman Catholic Archbishop of Los Angeles, Cal. Ct. App. Case No. B305810.[1]

Factual and procedural background

John HG Doe attended classes at the Our Lady of the Rosary Catholic Church during the late 1980s. The classes were held in a room located off of the sanctuary. When Doe was 10 in 1988, he asked to go to the bathroom. While he was in a bathroom stall, Father John Higson, an associate pastor who was not Doe’s teacher, entered the stall, groped Doe’s genitals, and forced Doe to perform oral sex on Higson. According to Doe, Higson told him that all of the boys did that as a part of their first communion. When Doe returned to class, he was upset. However, his teacher did not ask him why he was upset, and he did not tell the teacher what had happened to him.

Published on: September 16, 2019

Lyft Accused of Enabling Sexual Assault in California Lawsuit

by Steven M. Sweat

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Ride-share apps have transformed how people in California and elsewhere hail rides. Instead of calling and scheduling a taxicab, people simply have to download an app to be connected to any number of nearby Lyft or Uber drivers who are near to them. When these apps emerged on the scene in 2010, they quickly became popular. While the companies ostensibly conduct background checks of their drivers, however, many riders have reported that they were sexually assaulted by ride-share drivers. Recently, 14 people filed a lawsuit against Lyft in San Francisco, alleging that they were raped by their drivers.

Lyft lawsuit alleges rapes by drivers

The 14 plaintiffs in the lawsuit all allege that they were raped or sexually assaulted by their Lyft drivers. One plaintiff stated that she was raped in Oct. 2018. Her driver drove her around for five hours with the doors locked before forcibly raping her on a beach. Another states that she was sexually assaulted in Dec. 2018. She reported the assault to Lyft, and Lyft said it would investigate. However, she never received an update from the company and does not know the status of the driver’s employment with the company.

Published on: June 5, 2018

CA Supreme Court Rules Insurance Company Must Pay Negligent Hiring Supervision Claim

by Steven M. Sweat

In California, many liability insurance policies contain exclusions for injuries that result from intentional acts. This means that it can be difficult for injured victims to recover compensation when they are injured by the intentional actions of insured parties. In Liberty Surplus Insurance Corp. v. Ledesma & Meyer Construction Company Inc., Case No. S236765, the California Supreme Court recently addressed a case in which the employee of a construction company committed a sexual assault on a 13-year-old girl while he was working on a construction site at a school. The insurance company tried to assert that the exclusion for coverage applied because the act of the employee was intentional, and the company filed a lawsuit against the insurance company.

Factual background

The Ledesma & Meyer Construction Company secured a contract from the San Bernadino Unified School District to complete a construction project at a middle school. The company hired a man named Darrell Hecht to serve as an assistant superintendent and assigned him to manage the construction project at the middle school. While Hecht was on site at the school, he sexually molested a 13-year-old girl. The girl’s family filed a lawsuit against the Ledesma & Meyer Construction Company alleging that the company negligently hired, supervised and retained Hecht.

Published on: November 2, 2017

Hotel Maid Sexually Assaulted by Non-Employee May Sue for Sexual Harassment

by Steven M. Sweat

Sexual-Assault-Claims-California-Law Can an employee in California sue their employer if they are sexually assaulted in the workplace and the employer had some prior notice that the assault could occur? The California Fair Employment and Housing Act (“FEHA”) provides protections to workers from discrimination, including sexual harassment. The law allows workers to sue their employers when they suffer discrimination or sexual harassment while they are working. In M.F. v. Pacific Pearl Hotel Management LLC, Cal. App. 4th, No. D070150, the court ruled that workers are able to sue their employers under the FEHA when they have been sexually harassed or assaulted by nonemployees at their jobs.

Issue: Can an employee can sue her employer for nonemployee sexual harassment under the FEHA?

M.F. was employed as a housekeeper at the Pacific, which is a five-building hotel property owned by Pacific Pearl Hotel Management LLC. The hotel’s engineering manager saw a trespasser on the hotel property one morning who was not a guest of the hotel. The trespasser was intoxicated and was carrying a beer, but the engineering manager did not tell him to leave or report his presence to the housekeeping staff. Later, the trespasser approached one of the housekeepers while she was cleaning a room and tried to give her money in exchange for sexual favors. A maintenance worker who was working nearby overheard and helped the housekeeper to make the trespasser leave the room. The trespasser then went to another hotel room where a housekeeper was cleaning and tried to get into the room. He again offered money for sexual favors. The housekeeper was able to close the door on the man and reported the incident to her manager.