$5 Million From Greenwich for the Family of a 15-Year-Old Who Took His Life After Years of Unaddressed School Bullying

The boy was a sophomore at Greenwich High School. On August 27, 2013, after his first day back, he went home and shot himself. He was 15.

His parents, Anna and Franciszek Palosz, would later lay out in court filings what the preceding four years had looked like. Between 2009 and 2013, first at Western Middle School and then at the high school, their son was punched, kicked, pushed down stairs, pelted with trash, shoved into his locker, called names and subjected to homophobic taunts. A classmate smashed his cell phone. His bicycle was damaged. He was attacked on the school bus and on his route home. More than 25 bullying reports were filed with the schools during those years.

Connecticut law required the Greenwich Board of Education to adopt and enforce an anti-bullying policy, and it had one. The policy required staff who saw or heard of bullying to report it orally and in writing to an administrator, required an investigation, required parents to be brought in once bullying was verified, and required a safety plan and, for repeat victims, an intervention plan. The family's complaint alleged that it was common knowledge among staff that their son was being bullied and that none of those steps were taken. The town's lawyers answered that both schools had responded appropriately to any reported incidents.

The parents, as co-administrators of the estate, sued the Town of Greenwich and the Board of Education for wrongful death in Stamford Superior Court in 2015. The board moved to strike, arguing it was acting as an agent of the state when it carried out the state-mandated bullying policy and was therefore protected by sovereign immunity. Judge Jacobs denied the motion. On August 14, 2018, the Appellate Court affirmed in Palosz v. Greenwich, 184 Conn. App. 201, holding that a board of education acts for the town, not the state, when its employees fail to follow the policy the board adopted, and that the qualified immunity the legislature had given school boards for bullying-policy actions would be pointless if they already had absolute immunity. David S. Golub argued for the family, with Jennifer Goldstein and Jonathan M. Levine on the brief. The Connecticut Supreme Court denied certification in October 2018.

The case then ground through discovery for four more years. Fights over the privacy of witnesses who had been minors in 2013, over records and over expert selection consumed months. By early 2023 both sides had filed a joint trial management report: the family planned about 20 fact witnesses, the town more than 30, with experts on juvenile psychology and school policy on both sides. Jury selection was set to begin in February 2023.

Instead the town settled. The Board of Selectmen approved a $5 million payment, and on February 27, 2023, the Board of Estimate and Taxation voted 11 to 0 with one abstention to fund it, after the Representative Town Meeting's claims committee had signed off the week before. Greenwich pays $930,831.13 of the total from its own funds; its insurance carrier covers the rest. Golub, Goldstein and Joaquin Madry of Silver Golub & Teitell represented the family at the time of settlement. Goldstein told the Connecticut Law Tribune that the district had a strong policy on paper and a colossal failure to comply with it. The Law Tribune and NBC New York both described it as the largest settlement of school bullying claims against a Connecticut public school system.