PHILADELPHIA – A lawsuit filed by a Philadelphia woman who alleged she was handcuffed and left in a conference room for hours when she was a 10-year-old at a Philadelphia school has been settled.
In the lawsuit filed on May 1, 2019 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania against the School District of Philadelphia, plaintiff Diamond Wilson alleged she suffered an asthma attack and passed out, while she was handcuffed for more than five hours in a conference room at Barry Elementary School in 2010.
The suit claimed Wilson was handcuffed after she was involved in a fight, suffered the asthma attack, was then hospitalized for three days, was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and later began attending counseling due to anxiety and difficulty sleeping.
Wilson’s attorney, Gregg Zeff of Zeff Law Firm in Mount Laurel, N.J., said at the time the suit was filed that Wilson was then 18 years old, and there was no statute-of-limitations issue, because she filed the suit within two years after reaching age 18.
Zeff said he doesn’t know if handcuffing students was an approved practice in the school district and added Wilson suffered significant harm in the process.
“This is psychologically devastating, as it would be on anybody,” Zeff said.
According to the suit, a security guard broke up a fight between Wilson and a pair of twins, then the guard took Wilson to a principal’s office, “where the decision to keep her detained was made.”
“Defendants then escorted the plaintiff to a small conference room where she was then handcuffed from noon to 5:30-6:00 p.m. The conference room was 90 degrees at the time with no air ventilation. When plaintiff’s legal guardian arrived, she had passed out from an asthma attack and was taken straight to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia,” the suit said.
In response, the school district filed a motion to dismiss the suit on May 17, 2019, on the basis that the complaint was “astoundingly vague.”
“Plaintiff does not identify which defendant, if any, allegedly placed handcuffs on her, or which defendant escorted her to a conference room,” the school district had said in its motion.
“Here, plaintiff’s pleadings are so thin and her claims so poorly stated that Defendant School District is uncertain of what claims and defenses are at issue.”
On March 13, U.S. Magistrate Judge Carol Sandra Moore Wells issued an order detailing that upon notification by counsel that the suit was settled, it was hereby marked as such and the court retained jurisdiction until Sept. 13, 2020, when all conditions of the settlement agreement are satisfied.
An inquiry on the settlement value from the Pennsylvania Record to Zeff was not returned while the school district’s attorney, Hannah Girer-Rosenkrantz, stated the district does not comment on pending litigation.
The plaintiff was represented by Gregg L. Zeff of Zeff Law Firm, in Mount Laurel, N.J.
The defendants were represented by Hannah Girer-Rosenkrantz of the School District of Philadelphia and Susan Elizabeth Ulak of the City of Philadelphia Law Department.
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania case 2:19-cv-02035
From the Pennsylvania Record: Reach Courts Reporter Nicholas Malfitano at nick.malfitano@therecordinc.com