Appeals court upholds dismissal of civil rights lawsuit







10:00 PM PDT on Monday, June 1, 2009

By RICHARD K. DE ATLEY


An appellate court on Monday upheld a federal judge's dismissal of a civil-rights lawsuit filed after an Ontario boy fatally shot himself following discipline for ditching school to attend an immigration rights march in 2006.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said U.S. District Judge Stephen G. Larson correctly ruled that 14-year-old Anthony Soltero's suicide was not the result of a constitutional rights violation by a school administrator.

The appellate panel also agreed that there was no evidence of intent to harm Soltero by the disciplinary lecture of Gene Bennett, then the vice principal of De Anza Middle School in the Ontario-Montclair School District. It also ruled that while Bennett's words were harsh, they were not shocking to the conscience.

Soltero shot himself at home with a .22-caliber rifle in March 2006 after Bennett disciplined him and three other students for leaving campus without permission of the school or their parents.

The students had ostensibly walked away to join others in a march to protest pending federal legislation that would have criminalized helping illegal immigrants. The two campuses the De Anza students walked to were without marches to join.

Bennett had, according to one account, told the students their actions could result in a $250 fine, involvement by the police and the possibility of going to Juvenile Hall.

Soltero had been placed on probation stemming from an incident the previous spring in which he carried a knife to school, the appellate panel said, and his mother said he could face three years in jail if he were found in violation of his probation.

But the court noted the only consequence Bennett actually imposed was the loss of a school year-end field trip privilege. Soltero's suicide, the court said, was unforeseeable and extraordinary.

"Plaintiffs cannot show that Bennett's harsh lecture proximately caused Anthony's death," the judges ruled.

The lawsuit also contended that Soltero's First Amendment rights were violated. The appellate judges agreed with Larson that in the case of minor students, school administrators' duties to ensure student safety trump free speech protections.

To rule otherwise, the judges said, "Would be to allow 12- to 14-year-old students to leave school without the permission of their parents or school authorities to engage in any claimed First Amendment activity, no matter the danger."

Reach Richard K. De Atley at rdeatley@PE.com

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