The following comes from a Nov. 15 Mercury News story.
Two years after San Jose schoolgirls branded a teacher as a “perv” and “creeper” who inappropriately touched kids and peeked into their restroom, a civil jury Friday found the children and their parents financially liable for defamation in a case that pitted the rights of the accused against the aim of reporting perceived abuse.
The jury awarded $362,653 in compensatory damages to former Catholic school physical education teacher John Fischler after finding the families spread false statements about him that damaged his reputation. The 49-year-old broke into a huge smile Friday when he heard the favorable verdict, which his lawyer characterized as “complete vindication.”
“I’m grateful the jury was able to see through the smoke screen and the truth came out.” Fischler said in a choked voice outside the courtroom. “There’s always going to be a scar. But the jury saw through the deception.”
The Santa Clara County Superior Court panel also found that one of the girls — who was 11 years old at the time — acted with malice and is liable for punitive damages. The jury will decide how much during the second phase of the trial, which begins Monday. Judge William Monahan admonished jurors not to discuss the trial until it’s over.
The verdict shocked the families and their attorneys, who were confident that the jury would heed their warning that a decision against them for complaining that the teacher made their children uncomfortable would have a chilling effect on the reporting of school abuse.
“If this trial prevents one little girl or one mother or father from reporting suspected abuse,” lawyer Lee J. Danforth said Friday, “then this is profoundly sad for our society.”
But the jury believed the counter-argument by Fischler’s lawyer, Robert Vantress, that the families did not merely discuss their concerns with school officials, they essentially gossiped about it.
The unusual case began in 2011 when administrators at Holy Spirit school in Almaden Valley were told that teacher John Fischler had inappropriately touched their 10- and 11-year-old girls and peeked in a girls’ bathroom. School officials and police cleared Fischler of sexual misconduct.
But the teacher, claiming the ordeal had indelibly stained his reputation and ruined his teaching career, declined to return to what he called a poisonous atmosphere at work and filed a lawsuit seeking nearly $1 million in damages.
The lawsuit contended he was the victim of a “conspiracy” by “classic parent bullies” and their daughters, including a popular girl he described as having a “gang-leader-like personality,” to get him fired from the private Catholic school where he was an at-will employee.
It took the jury of nine women and three men about four days to reach Friday’s verdict.
To prove defamation, at least nine out of 12 jurors had to find by a “preponderance of the evidence” that a statement was false, injurious and not of legitimate interest to its recipients. And, in the toughest hurdle to overcome, the panel also had to decide the statement wasn’t merely opinion….
To read the entire story, click here.
Recently I had to sit through one of those hideous “protect our children” presentations at my church. The presenter made the statement when ask a question by one of the attendees what they should do if they know the child is lying. Her response was that children NEVER LIE!
Now I am all for protecting children. Sadly in the past, abuse to kids was allowed to go on without much more than maybe a raised eyebrow. Now, however, the opposite extreme seems to be occurring with more frequency, as it has appeared to have happened in this case. Not only are children victimizing adults, but their parents are in on the game. I am glad that this former teacher received justice.
Children never lie!? HA! that is the lie. I’ll never forget the chill I experienced when our troubled son was 14 and was becoming increasingly hostile towards us – I was in his room looking for any signs of drugs or stuff like that and instead I found a hand written note in his desk drawer indicating that I had abused him. It was a lie, one of a thousand we had already experienced, but not as hurtful as this one. I left it there to see what he would do with it and put my trust in God. His final act of rebellion caused us to give him a choice and he chose the street and unfortunately has decided to keep running from his problems. A few months after he left for the final time I cleared out his room and the note was still there. Children do lie and with malice and intent to hurt. Whatever the underlying reasons and issues are remain irrelevant because the bottom line is had he given that nefarious note to some damned infernal social worker, as they all are, ….well, we all know what would have happened.
Joe God bless you, I am sorry about your son. My heart goes out to you…..and you are right, teens can get out of control especially on their parents too.
Joe V.
We must pray that your son becomes a prodigal son and return repentant.
May God have mercy on an amoral America!
Viva Cristo Rey!
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher, Founding Director
Concerned Roman Catholics of America, Inc.
Great news, JUSTICE PREVAILED!
God be praised for showing the truth.
If these girls wwere lying and trying to destroy this man’s life and reputation, I’m glad they were found out.
Crying “foul” when there is no foul is disgraceful: “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.”
It is a crime agains the victim (this teacher), but also against children who ARE truly the victims of abuse because such false allegations make people unwilling, sometimes, to listen to the REAL victims of abuse.
I hope these parents and lying kids get the book thrown at them.
Exoneration is more important to a career teacher than any cash he may get out of this (although I presume the Diocese with reinstate him with back pay). The lesson to parents is to know your real kids and pay no attention to talking heads on talk shows about “child psychology”. Kids can lie and lie maliciously, to get back at someone or cover evidence of their own follies. Rulings like this one help keep the legitimate crusade against assaults on children from turning into witch-hunts.
Since I don’t know the whole facts on this case, I can’t comment but I do feel that it must have to bare some truth for the girls to have felt uncomfortable…….for it to have come this far, he must have done something to have made these girls uncomfortable. The school officials probably didn’t handle it well since it lead to this court case.
A few years ago in one of our local charter schools. There was a male who worked at their school, he was seen peeking in girls bathrooms. A girl reported it, the school’s assistant principle nipped it in the bud and took action. Nothing else was heard of afterwards….that was a public charter school, now the question is what did this school do to help nip it before it got this far?
Parents are also reporting that children are threatening to call authorities and say they are being abused physically and/or sexually in order to gain the upper hand over them. This is a tragedy for our society, as preteens and teens actually do not have fully developed brains, as a casual observance of the judgment they can exhibit will readily confirm.
Yet if truly abused children are not believed, perhaps because they exaggerated or reported some minor fact incorrectly, we are failing our children.
Discernment of truth is a challenge, and it is definitely not true that children don’t lie, even about serious matters, making the job of responsible adults all the more difficult. To state that children never lie is itself an untruth.
Some Catholics have become hysterical over the subject of sexual abuse. A Priest in my parish was accused by a parent because his hand was shaking while holding hands with an altar boy during the “Our Father.” The priest has Parkinson’s disease, but instead of the parent inquiring as to why the priests’ hands shake, he immediately jumped to the wrong conclusion.
Catholics have to stop persecuting Catholics and stop persecuting our priests. We get enough of that from the secular world.
I’m glad this teacher fought back — and won. Nowadays anyone can say anything about a teacher or a priest or anyone without any proof whatsoever and the accused is forever tarred for life.
Stephanie you don’t know the facts…..this is California too…….