Lawsuits have been filed in Connecticut and Missouri that accused school systems of not doing enough to protect students from bullying.
In the Connecticut case, the bullying victim, Bartlomiej "Bart" Palosz, killed himself in 2013 after the first day of his sophomore year at Greenwich High School.
In the Missouri case, an unidentified male student at Ladue Horton Watkins High School in Ladue contends that he has been subjected to "“severe, pervasive and persistent harassing conduct of a sexual nature.”
The Associated Press reports that Palosz's parents have filed a wrongful death suit against the schools and town government in Greenwich. They assert that local officials failed to adequately address the years the bullying that their son endured.
The family contends in the lawsuit that Bart was the victim of constant bullying in his years at Western Middle School and his freshman year at Greenwich High School. The lawsuit says school staff failed to investigate instances of bullying and failed to discipline the bullies.
In the Missouri lawsuit, the Ladue district is accused of failing to protect the bullying victim from harassment.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch says the lawsuit alleges that bullying students accused the victim, identified in court documents only by initials, of being gay. They allegedly used anti-gay slurs against the boy and threatened him.
After the boy's parents complained, the suit states, Ladue officials failed to investigate the accusations properly, to notify the alleged harassers' parents, or to remove the offending students.
Connecticut lawsuit: Video from WFSB-TV:
