The Town of Greenwich has agreed to pay $5 million to the estate of a boy who took his own life at the age of 15 after experiencing years of physical and emotional bullying in the public school system.
NBC News reported the Greenwich the Board of Selectmen approved the settlement in the case of Bartlomiej (Bart) Palosz, who died by suicide in 2013. More than 25 bullying reports were filed between 2009 and 2013 when Palosz was a student at Western Middle School and Greenwich High School.
Palosz died by suicide on Aug. 27, 2013, and his parents filed a lawsuit against the town two years later, alleging the school failed to investigate the abuse or discipline the classmates who tormented him.
The town tried for years to get the lawsuit dismissed under a “doctrine of sovereign immunity” argument, but courts repeatedly rejected that strategy. The town will pay $930,831.13 of the $5 million settlement, with the rest of the sum being covered by its insurance carrier.
“This case is important not only because it vindicates Bart”™s right to be protected from bullying but also because Connecticut courts repeatedly rejected the town”™s claim that it had immunity and could not be held liable for failing to protect students who are bullied in school,” said Jennifer Goldstein, an attorney representing the Palosz family.
