Jury Awards $35 Million Against Pomona Unified to Former Student Abused by Assistant Track Coach
After trial: We found no report of an appeal, new trial motion or reduction. The jury assigned 70 percent of fault to the district and 30 percent to the coach, and we could not confirm how that split affects what the district owes or whether any of the award has been paid.
Won by Taylor & Ring, LLP.
In January 2024 a Los Angeles County Superior Court jury awarded $35 million to a woman identified in court as Jane Doe No. 4, who said a Pomona High School assistant track coach raped her in 1997 when she was 16. She said the principal told her to speak to no one about it. The jury assigned 70 percent of fault to Pomona Unified School District and 30 percent to the coach.
What happened
In spring 1997, Jane Doe No. 4 was a 16-year-old member of the Pomona High School track and field team, traveling with the squad to a meet in Las Vegas, Nevada. She had argued with the head coach about the meet. An assistant coach, Herman Hopson, then invited her to his room at the team's motel to talk it over. According to court documents, Hopson was intoxicated, and he kissed her, undressed her and raped her.
After the team returned to California, she reported what had happened to the school's principal. Court documents say the principal told her to 'speak to no one about this' and that the administration would take care of it. No criminal charges were ever filed, and the head coach was not disciplined. She said she then faced verbal harassment from that coach, her classmates and her teammates, and she moved out of state when the school year ended.
She sued Pomona Unified School District and the coaches decades later as one of eight women who brought claims over alleged abuse by Pomona High coaches in the 1990s. Her case, No. 22PSCV00686, was the first of the group to reach a jury. She was represented by John Taylor and Natalie Weatherford of Taylor & Ring, LLP. The district was defended by McCune & Harber.
The plaintiff's case rested on what the district's own employees knew and did. Taylor told the Los Angeles Times that former students testified abuse by coaches was widespread and open, and he argued that administrators had been aware of the grooming and abuse long before she came forward. The district's superintendent, who took over decades later, said the current administration learned of the 1990s allegations in 2018, reported them to law enforcement, and that prosecutors declined to bring charges.
The jury returned its verdict in late January 2024, awarding $35 million. Jury Verdict Alert reports that jurors assigned 70 percent of the fault to the school district and 30 percent to Hopson.
Of the other seven women who sued, four had already settled by the time of the verdict, and three cases were still pending. The district has since added mandatory-reporter training, training for administrators on preventing grooming, and closer monitoring of its athletic programs.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
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