Ex-Student Sues District, Alleging Breach of Secrecy

A former Hueneme High School student who had told campus administrators in confidence that a classmate was planning to shoot students and teachers has filed a lawsuit against the school district for revealing her identity to the classmate.

Elizabeth Goodall alleges that the district acted negligently and is asking for damages in excess of $25,000, including medical expenses and loss of educational opportunity. Goodall said she left school in May 1999, about a month before graduation, because school administrators told her they couldn’t guarantee her safety.

Since then, the 20-year-old Goodall said in her lawsuit, she has been threatened with violence numerous times. On Tuesday, she said that former classmate Megan O’Brien “threatens to kill me one day and then beat the heck out of me the next.”

O’Brien, 17, said Tuesday she was angry that Goodall had reported her, because it led to her expulsion. She denied making any threats against Goodall, but said her friends might have done so.

Oxnard Union High School District officials refused to comment on the case.

Attorneys throughout the state say this case is unique in the field of school law. “It’s the first one that I’m aware of,” said Ron Wenkart, who sits on the board of directors of the California Council of School Attorneys. “It will probably be the first case of its kind.”

The incident in question happened in the wake of shootings at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., when copycat threats and bomb scares were rampant on high school campuses and teachers and principals were encouraging students to report anything they heard.

If the case is decided in favor of Goodall, Wenkart said it will send a message to school administrators throughout California that they need to be extremely careful about protecting students’ identities.

Although the state Education Code does not explicitly require districts to keep students’ names confidential if they are witnesses in expulsion cases, attorneys said most districts do so to ensure those students’ safety.

Goodall’s attorney said district officials had an ethical responsibility to protect his client’s identity from O’Brien. “This student was threatening people’s lives,” said Robert Bartosh, who filed the suit last week in Ventura County Superior Court. “They weren’t supposed to divulge her name.”

In an interview Tuesday, Goodall described what happened in the spring of 1999. Just a few days after the Columbine rampage, Goodall said, O’Brien told her about plans to re-create the massacre. O’Brien invited her to participate and asked her to help get the guns, she said.

At first, Goodall thought her friend was kidding. But when O’Brien produced a written note describing the plans with details about guns, bombs and getaway cars, Goodall said she believed it was serious.

“She went on and on about how she wanted to kill all these people execution-style,” Goodall said. “It freaked me out.”

She showed the note to her mother, Joni, who said she immediately called the school and the police.

O’Brien said Tuesday that the whole plan was a joke. “I have a sick sense of humor,” she said. “I made up some stupid things.”

O’Brien said she didn’t think Goodall or anyone else would take it seriously. “I thought she was my friend and understood it was a joke,” she said.

Goodall said she signed a document at the school detailing everything she knew, with the understanding that the district would keep her name a secret.

“I didn’t want [O’Brien] to know I ratted on her,” she said. “If she was crazy enough to make that threat, then Lord knows what would happen if she knew.”

About two weeks later, Goodall said she found out that the administrators had not kept their promise. “All my friends turned on me,” she said. “I was facing a wall of people all accusing me of being a narc.”

Goodall said she stormed into the school office and demanded to know how the students found out she had snitched. She said administrators told her they had accidentally failed to block out her name when they gave O’Brien an expulsion notice. Goodall was enraged.

So was her mother. When she came to pick up her daughter at school that day, Joni Goodall said, the administrators asked her how soon she could move out of state. “I was furious,” she said. “They lied to my face. They guaranteed me they would never release her name and they did.”

Soon after the incident, Elizabeth Goodall moved to Virginia to stay with relatives, but returned to Oxnard about four months later. She is working as a cashier at a grocery store and still has not finished high school.

O’Brien is a student at Gateway Community School and plans to graduate this June.

Joni Goodall said she is still disturbed about the district’s failure to protect her daughter’s identity. “They have a job to do, and they’ve failed to do it,” she said. “They’ve ruined my daughter’s life and they’ve jeopardized my daughter and my family.”