Sex Abuse Suits Blocked By Statute Of Limitations, LFHS Argues

CHICAGO — A pair of federal judges is considering whether to dismiss lawsuits filed last year on behalf of former Lake Forest High School students who say they were groomed and sexually abused by teachers decades earlier.

Attorneys for Lake Forest Community High School District 115 and its two former employees argue that the statute of limitations bars both lawsuits from going forward, among other things. Further fact-finding in both cases has been put on hold while judges decide whether to toss out some, or all, of their claims.

In May 2021, six former students sued retired longtime drama teacher David Miller, who resigned in 2009 amid an investigation into inappropriate sexual messages with a student. The allegations of abuse against Miller date from the fall of 1976 to the spring of 1988.

Another former student sued former teacher and softball coach Cynthia Martin, describing sexual misconduct in the fall of 1986 and spring of 1988. All seven former students are represented by the same attorney. Both 13-count complaints also name the high school and district as defendants.

The district's attorney, Jennifer Smith, argued that a two-year statute of limitations applies to all the conduct described in both complaints.

Exceptions to the statute of limitations — that the abuse victims only discovered the abuse years later or whether the district's silence about the abuse amounted to fraudulent concealment — do not apply, Smith said, in support of motions to dismiss the cases.

Smith also argued that the district was legally immune from both lawsuits. Neither alleged that "the District had actual knowledge of the abuse," the school's attorney said.

The complaint against Martin alleges LFHS faculty members witnessed her abuse of students and that teachers and administrators reported their concerns to the district, while the suit naming Miller as a defendant alleges that teachers, parents, village residents and school administrators all reported concerns about his conduct.

Both complaints allege that District 115 officials were aware of "widespread rumors" regarding inappropriate sexual conduct between the former employees and students.

"Alleging that an unidentified 'faculty,' 'teacher,' or 'administrator' of the District may have observed unidentified conduct or received a complaint does not impute knowledge to the District," Smith said, in both cases.

"It is notable," the school district's attorney argued, "that none of the Plaintiffs allege that they informed anyone at the District that they were sexually abused by [Miller and Martin.]"

According to the responses from the attorney for the seven former students, the abuse caused them physical and psychological injuries that prevented each of them from discovering that they had been sexually abused and injured until July 2019, at the earliest.

The students' attorney said they all suppressed the memories of the abuse "until recently when they discovered they had been suppressing the memories of their abuse, discovered their injuries, and became aware of their causes of action against the defendants."

Under this "discovery rule," the statute of limitations only begins running out once a victim discovers the injury.

But Martin's attorney, John Scheid, argued that since the former coach's accuser was aware of the abuse at the time — conceding in the complaint that she "believed the that this behavior was alright as long as [she] was drunk or high" — courts have held "with monotonous regularity" that the discovery rule does not apply.

A telephonic status hearing in the case against Martin and the district is scheduled for Feb. 16 before U.S. District Judge Gary Feinerman.

The next court date has not yet been scheduled before U.S. District Judge John Kness in the suit against Miller.

According to status reports, as of November, no settlement discussions had occurred in either case.

Attorneys for the district and Martin both also cited an October 2021 Illinois appeals court decision that upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit filed by a former Downers Grove North High School student who said she only recognized in 2017 the extent of her injuries from sexual abuse by a music teacher and band director in the late 1990s.

Related: 2 Sex Abuse Suits Filed Against Lake Forest High School, Teachers