US school will pay US$9.1 million to settle lawsuit over student’s suicide

NEW YORK – A New Jersey school district has agreed to pay US$9.1 million (S$12.11 million) to the parents of a sixth grader who died by suicide in 2017, ending a lawsuit that accused administrators of failing to take bullying complaints seriously.

Dianne and Seth Grossman sued following the death of their daughter, Mallory, during her first year at Copeland Middle School in Rockaway Township. Mallory had been bullied repeatedly by other students in text and Snapchat messages, and although administrators were routinely contacted about the bullying, the school did not do enough to respond, according to the lawsuit.

The settlement, first reported by Northjersey.com, comes as schools face growing scrutiny over how they handle reports of bullying, both within their halls and online, after a student takes their own life.

Factors that contribute to suicide are complex and varied, and the act is rarely attributable to any one thing. But the question of a school’s culpability in cases where administrators made missteps or took insufficient action has become the subject of court cases around the United States.

Rockaway Township School District Superintendent of Schools Richard Corbett said the district had no comment.

Mallory’s death, and her parents’ advocacy in the years that followed, led to the passage of Mallory’s Law in New Jersey last year. The law substantially strengthened the state’s bullying policies, according to Bruce Nagel, a lawyer representing the Grossman family.

Rates of suicide and self-harm have risen among adolescents, across demographics, in recent years. A study published in 2022 found that adolescents who experienced cyber bullying were more than four times as likely to report suicidal thoughts and attempts. Nearly three in five teenage girls felt persistent sadness in 2021, double the rate of boys, according to a recent study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The study also found that one in three girls seriously considered attempting suicide.