Defendants added to Cedar Creek lawsuit

More defendants have been added to the lawsuit involving alleged bullying and sexual battery at Ruston’s Cedar Creek School, and more may be added before the case goes to trial.

On Tuesday, attorneys for the plaintiffs and several defendants appeared before ad hoc Judge Jimmie C. Peters in the suit’s second public hearing.

This hearing centered on several exceptions filed by three groups of defendants who took issue with portions of the original lawsuit and sought to have them amended or thrown out before the case moves to trial.

The hearing was also the public’s first glimpse into the status of the case since court records were sealed in February and Peters issued a gag order instructing all parties to avoid speaking with the media.

A story in Wednesday’s Daily Leader focused on the plaintiffs’ plans to use a social media post Cedar Creek released in the wake of the lawsuit and later deleted to help build its case against the school.

Here’s what else we learned from Tuesday’s proceedings.

First, a supplement to the original lawsuit has apparently been filed some time in the past month.

According to statements made during the hearing, the supplement adds new defendants to the case, including a Cedar Creek teacher and multiple insurance companies.

The identities of those additional defendants aren’t public because the document that added them is sealed.

It also appears that more students could be added to the suit before the trial stage.

As the defense challenged him on the “vagueness” of some of the suit’s claims, plaintiff attorney Wes Bearden said more defendants who may have assisted in the alleged acts of sexual battery or bullying against his client may be added as their identities are revealed during the discovery stage.

Discovery is when attorneys conduct interviews with the parties and other witnesses outside of court in preparation for trial.

Three initial days of discovery were conducted in January, during which the minor plaintiff and a number of other parties were interviewed.

There were apparently three more days of discovery this week.

Judge Peters called the discovery conducted so far “just the tip of the iceberg,” indicating the eventual trial in this case could still be quite some time away.

Part of what will determine who else may be added to the suit depends on the minor plaintiff’s memory.

Bearden acknowledged his client has “contradicted himself” a few times in depositions so far but said the young man is receiving “psychiatric and psychological care” to address repressed memories resulting from the trauma of what the lawsuit claims he endured.

The plaintiffs claim their son was subjected to frequent severe bullying, such as being told to kill himself and having other boys urinate on his belongings, in addition to multiple instances of sexual battery with an object.

The specificity of the sexual battery claims was a sticking point of Tuesday’s hearing.

Attorney Chris Bowman represents Lonnie Menzina, Clay Keener McConnell, Leigh Baskin Robbins and Mary Ann Hill, who all told are the parents of three of the alleged perpetrators.

Bowman said many of the lawsuit’s claims do not specify exactly which student is supposed to have done which act. For example, one section in the original version of the suit states “a group of boys too large to count” held the plaintiff down and sexually penetrated him with an object.

“It’s impossible for us to respond to that,” Bowman said.

He said the lawsuit makes it “appear as though all the minors were involved in the alleged sexual misconduct.”

“It wasn’t the whole group of boys,” Bowman said. “Some of them weren’t even there when the alleged sexual acts occurred.”

Bearden said in most instances the lawsuit specifies which defendants carried out the acts of sexual battery, and the rest would be identified if they are revealed during discovery.

But he also acknowledged that not all of the minors listed in the suit participated in the alleged sexual conduct.

“We’ve named certain kids who were involved the sexual assault and some who weren’t,” he said.

In the original copy of the suit, the minors who are specifically alleged to have committed acts of sexual battery are “Alex,” “Charlie,” and “Bill” — fictitious names for the sons of Terry “Tuna” Lowery and Lisa Barnett Lowery, Erik Austin Shepherd and Margaret “Ellen” Baxter Shepherd, and Sommar Elizabeth McKoin Hall and Jonah Merle Jones, respectively.

It’s those last two parents, Hall and Jones, whose lawyer presented another exception to Peters Tuesday, claiming that the parents can’t legally be held liable for punitive damages in the matter when they themselves are not the perpetrator.

Act 411, passed by the Louisiana Legislature last year, lays the groundwork for civil plaintiffs to seek punitive damages caused by sexual assault.

But it also says that law is applicable “only to the perpetrator of the sexual assault.”

The parents, lawyer Shane Craighead argues, are not the perpetrators.

“The plaintiffs are asking the court to ignore that sentence of the law,” Craighead told Peters.

“So you’re saying there is no punitive damage remedy if a child is the perpetrator?” Peters responded.

That’s a question for the Legislature, Craighead said.

Bearden said the lawsuit names the parents as defendants not only in their own capacity but “on behalf of the perpetrators,” their children.

“The parents are a placeholder for the children, because we have to go through them to get to the perpetrators,” Bearden said.

Peters did not rule on either Bowman’s or Craighead’s exceptions during Tuesday’s hearing, saying he would take just a few days to file his rulings.