Los Angeles Jury Awards $30 Million to Mother of Boy, 6, Killed by School District Playground Worker; Reversed
After trial: The Court of Appeal reversed the judgment in June 2025, holding Education Code section 44808 immunized the district for a death off school property, and directed judgment for the district, so no award stood. We could not confirm whether review was sought in the California Supreme Court.
Won by Wilshire Law Firm.
A Los Angeles jury awarded $30 million in noneconomic damages in 2023 to Kenya Taylor, whose 6-year-old son was beaten to death by a Los Angeles Unified School District playground worker she had asked to watch him over winter break, and put 90 percent of the fault on the district. The Court of Appeal reversed in June 2025, holding that Education Code section 44808 made the district immune because the death happened off campus, and directed judgment for the district.
What happened
In December 2019, Kenya Taylor asked a district employee her son knew from a school summer program to watch her 6-year-old boy during winter break. The man, Tyler Martin-Brand, had worked since 2016 as a playground supervisor in an after-school program at Playa Vista Elementary School, part of the Los Angeles Unified School District, and in 2019 the district assigned him to supervise a summer program at Normandie Elementary School, which the boy attended.
On December 26, 2019, Martin-Brand brought the boy home to his mother when the child was dying. The boy died later that day from blunt force trauma caused by an assault. In 2022, Martin-Brand pleaded no contest to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison.
Taylor sued the district in Los Angeles Superior Court. Before trial she dropped every claim except one: that the district negligently hired, retained and supervised Martin-Brand, and that this carelessness was a substantial factor in her son's death. Her lawyers, as listed by the Metropolitan News-Enterprise, were Steve Vartazarian and Matthew J. Whibley of the Vartazarian Law Firm, Daniel DeSantis of Wilshire Law Firm, and Jeffrey I. Ehrlich of the Ehrlich Law Firm. The district was represented by Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman.
The case went to a jury in 2023 before Judge Michael B. Harwin. On a special verdict form, jurors found the district negligent in hiring and supervising Martin-Brand, found Taylor herself also negligent, and found that both were substantial factors in causing the harm. They assigned 90 percent of the fault to the district and awarded $30 million, all of it noneconomic damages. Judge Harwin denied the district's motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, which argued that Education Code section 44808 barred the claim.
The district appealed, and in a decision filed June 9, 2025 (certified for publication July 2, 2025), the Second District Court of Appeal, Division Three, reversed. Justice Rashida A. Adams wrote that section 44808 shields a school district from liability for a student's safety when the student is off school property, absent a transportation, school-sponsored activity or assumed-responsibility exception. The boy died away from campus while school was not in session, and no district employee was shown to have known he was with Martin-Brand. The court reversed the judgment and the order denying the motion, and directed the trial court to enter judgment for the district.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
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