Testing Ordered in Abuse Lawsuit

A judge has ordered the parents of several sexual assault victims to undergo mental health testing as part of their lawsuit alleging that Oxnard Union High School District officials failed to protect their children from an abusive teacher.

During a pretrial hearing Monday, Ventura County Superior Court Judge Vincent J. O’Neill ruled that in addition to the children, their parents must also participate in psychiatric tests and interviews to determine their emotional states.

Attorney Brenda Andrade, who represents the 13 parents and seven children in the lawsuit involving convicted child molester Chad Pridgen, said Tuesday that while testing of the juveniles seemed reasonable, she was considering filing a writ with an appeals court to stop the parental testing.

“We don’t want the parents to be victimized anymore,” Andrade said. “A parent having to undergo a mental health examination is extreme and I don’t want to cause them to suffer anymore.”

However, she also acknowledged that proving the parents’ emotional trauma would be difficult under state law and that it was possible she might eventually drop them from the lawsuit. “It’s very difficult for parents who have been affected by their children’s abuse to successfully sue for emotional distress,” she said.

Last July, Pridgen pleaded guilty to 20 crimes involving 11 teenage boys, most of whom were students in his Camarillo High School science class or members of the tennis or soccer teams he coached between 1999 and 2001. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Months before the criminal case was resolved, parents of several victims filed a civil lawsuit against the school district, accusing officials of disregarding complaints made about Pridgen in the years before he was charged and convicted. A trial is set for Sept. 27.

Kenton Moore, the school district’s attorney, defended the parental testing as necessary for rebutting the parents’ claim that they had suffered emotional distress after learning that the district was warned about the abuse and failed to protect their children from Pridgen.

“In order to counter any arguments about how much damages were suffered, we have to be able to have our own expert,” Moore said.

Moore said the tests would also be helpful in determining damages if settlement talks were to occur.

Defense attorneys who are not involved in the case said it was common for parents to undergo mental health examinations in such cases, but that collecting damages for their emotional distress could be difficult.

“Normally, for the parents to recover [damage awards] they would have needed to be witnesses to some activity, “ said Robert Pugsley, professor of criminal law at Southwestern University School of Law in Los Angeles.

Pugsley said, though, that there was legal precedent for the parents. He cited a 1982 California appellate court decision in which a man was awarded damages for emotional distress after his wife was raped by one of his friends.

The state Supreme Court, Pugsley added, also has ruled that certain relationships can be so close that the criminal behavior would be “imminently foreseeable to disturb.” This standard would allow the parents to receive damages, he said.

“The courts are reluctant to open the floodgates of litigation but they are willing to recognize that [a case like this] is akin to dropping off a hen at the chicken coop that is being guarded by the fox,” Pugsley said. Some cases “must send a deterrent message to the people who are in a position to abuse their authority.”

Next month, the children and parents are expected to undergo testing by Dr. Lester Zackler, a Sherman Oaks-based psychiatrist hired by the defense. The testing will include written examinations and one-on-one interviews, Moore said.

The testing issue was the latest step in the lawsuit, which was filed by the families in October 2002 and seeks unspecified monetary damages.

In addition to the school district, the suit names several district employees, including Supt. Gary Davis, Assistant Supt. Roger Rice and athletic director Mike Smith.

Pridgen’s crimes included giving minors alcohol, showing them pornographic videos, masturbating in front of them and having oral sex with them during weekends and after-school parties at his Camarillo home.

The lawsuit alleges that school officials were alerted of Pridgen’s behavior but did nothing to investigate it. As early as 1999, the lawsuit states, a student and his parents confronted school officials about inappropriate sexual comments Pridgen had made to students. School officials initially denied receiving the complaints, but backpedaled when the families’ attorneys produced a tape recording of the meeting.

“[The defendants] failed to take any reasonable steps to ... ensure the safety of these schoolchildren and/or to prevent Pridgen’s sexually predatory acts of molestation and/or sexual harassment that did, in fact, continue to occur over the ensuing months and years to come,” according to the lawsuit.