Jury Finds Private School 35 Percent Liable for Abuse by Its After-School Director
After trial: Westerly's Head of School, Patrick Brown, declined to say in June 2018 whether the school would appeal. No appellate ruling or later reporting of an appeal has surfaced, and coverage of Durzo's related criminal case, where he pleaded guilty in Orange County in December 2018 and was sentenced in late February 2019, made no mention of one either, so the verdict is treated as final.
Won by Taylor & Ring, LLP.
A Los Angeles County jury found Westerly School, a private K-8 school in Long Beach, 35 percent liable for years of sexual abuse committed against a teenage boy who spent his days on its campus, abused by the after-school program director the school employed. In June 2018 the jury awarded $25.3 million: $300,000 in future medical costs, $10 million in past pain and suffering, and $15 million in future pain and suffering, with the remaining fault split between the abuser and the plaintiff's parents. Westerly's apportioned share came to just under $9 million. The school's Head of School said Westerly was saddened by the abuse but would not say whether it planned to appeal, and no appeal was later reported.
What happened
Scott Durzo ran a youth sports camp in Seal Beach, California, when he met an eight-year-old boy in 2000. Over the next several years Durzo built trust with the boy, acting as a mentor and friend, before the relationship turned abusive in the mid 2000s, when the boy was in his early teens. In 2008, Westerly School, a private K-8 school in Long Beach, hired Durzo, then in his mid-forties, to direct its after-school program.
Durzo brought the boy, then fifteen and enrolled in home-study classes, onto the Westerly campus to work on his coursework, and the school itself later hired the boy as a recess supervisor. Throughout the 2008-2009 school year, Durzo repeatedly took him off campus to his home and abused him, with the assaults occurring several times a week. A female Westerly employee suspected the relationship at the time but never reported it to Child Protective Services, law enforcement, or anyone else at the school. Durzo later fired her.
The boy stopped coming to the Westerly campus after that school year. In 2014, when he was in his early twenties and after two attempts to take his own life, he told his father what had happened. His father reported Durzo to the Seal Beach Police Department, and Durzo was arrested on May 7, 2014, admitting to the abuse. He was later charged with 20 felony counts, including sodomy and displaying pornography to a minor, with a sentencing enhancement for substantial sexual conduct with a minor.
The young man sued Westerly and Durzo in Los Angeles County Superior Court in April 2016, represented by John Taylor and Natalie Weatherford of Taylor & Ring. The case went to trial before Judge Patrick Madden and lasted three weeks. On June 6, 2018, the jury returned a verdict of $25.3 million: $300,000 for future medical expenses, $10 million for past pain and suffering, and $15 million for future pain and suffering.
Jurors apportioned fault at 35 percent to Westerly, 62 percent to Durzo, and 3 percent to the plaintiff's parents, putting Westerly's share of the verdict at just under $9 million. Taylor said after the verdict that the jury 'worked very hard to get this verdict right,' adding that the case involved 'so many red flags' the school should have caught. Westerly's Head of School, Patrick Brown, said in a statement that the school was saddened by Durzo's actions and hoped the outcome would bring 'a measure of healing,' but he did not say whether Westerly would appeal.
Durzo's criminal case was resolved separately, in Orange County Superior Court, where he pleaded guilty on December 14, 2018 to nine counts of lewd or lascivious acts with a child under 14, seven counts of lewd acts on a child age 14 or 15, and one count of sodomy of a person under 16. He was sentenced to three years in prison. No appeal of the civil verdict was reported, and none appears in the public record.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.Long Beach Post News, June 7, 2018 (Internet Archive capture): names Taylor & Ring, John Taylor and Natalie Weatherford as plaintiff's counsel, gives the verdict breakdown ($300,000 future medical, $10 million past, $15 million future) and Westerly's 35 percent share, and quotes Taylor and Westerly's Head of School Patrick Brown. The Post's headline says $25.5 million, but its own itemisation sums to $25.3 million, which is the figure the verdict reporter and the firm both give
- 2.Jury Verdict Alert (Neubauer & Associates), staffed verdict reporter: confirms case Stephen W. v. Westerly School of Long Beach, LASC No. BC615649, Judge Patrick T. Madden, the $25,300,000 gross verdict, the 35/62/3 percent fault apportionment, and names Taylor & Ring's John C. Taylor and Natalie Weatherford as plaintiff's counsel
- 3.Long Beach Post News, March 2019 (Internet Archive capture): reports Durzo's December 2018 guilty plea and three-year prison sentence in Orange County, and gives the Orange County plea counts, the sentencing judge and the three-year term, and refers back to the civil verdict against Durzo and the school with no mention of an appeal
- 4.The National Trial Lawyers, 2018 (trade coverage following the firm's announcement, corroboration only): reports that the plaintiff attempted to take his own life twice before disclosing the abuse in 2014, and names John C. Taylor and Natalie Weatherford as the trial lawyers
- 5.Taylor & Ring, LLP (firm)
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