Lawsuit over bullying against Greenwich School District could go to trial in June 2022

GREENWICH — Nearly six years after the filing of a wrongful death lawsuit against the Greenwich Board of Education over its handling of the case of a student who, according to the lawsuit, was repeatedly bullied in school, a new trial date has been proposed

Acting as the administrators of his estate, the family of Bart Palosz, who died by suicide at the age of 15 in 2013, sued the Greenwich Board of Education in August 2015, claiming the district failed to protect him and ensure that anti-bullying policies were followed.

The long-running lawsuit has been tied up on procedural issues for more than three years, and legal disputes over evidence and witnesses took additional time. The COVID-19 pandemic also added delays to the process, according to court papers.

Now, the lawyers on both sides of the Bart Palosz lawsuit have moved to modify the schedule in state Superior Court, proposing that the trial date be moved to next summer.

“The parties have made substantial progress in discovery in this matter and continue to work cooperatively,” according to the recent joint filing presented to Judge Robert Genuario this month. The lawyers say they are working “diligently” to schedule the depositions of witnesses in the case.

The proposed schedule sets a pretrial conference in the first week of June 2022, with a trial set to begin the week of June 20, 2022. The judge has yet to approve the timetable.

The lawsuit contends that school administrators and other school employees knew he had endured bullying for years but did not follow certain internal policies to sufficiently protect him. The family, in their lawsuit, says that Bart died by suicide on his first day of classes as a sophomore at Greenwich High School, after being subjected to years of bullying in school.

Since many of the witnesses in the case are employed in the school district, the COVID-19 pandemic made it difficult to schedule witness depositions, “given the limitations and demands imposed by their respective schools’ continuing efforts to address the pandemic,” according to the motion filed this month.

The amount of damages sought in the case, while not specified, exceeds $15,000, according to court papers. In early 2017 the plaintiffs made a $7.5 million offer to settle the case, according to legal filings, but the defendants filed an objection and the offer did not yield a conclusion to the case.

Messages left with David Golub, the lawyer representing the Palosz family, and Martha Gaythwaite, representing the town and the school board, were not returned.

rmarchant@greenwichtime.com

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