SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The law firm of Corsiglia, McMahon & Allard has filed an amended sexual abuse lawsuit (Santa Clara County Superior Court Case No. 22CV409107) against the Alum Rock Union Elementary School District on behalf of three women now in their late 50’s who claim they were abused by their first-grade teacher.
The lawsuit names three victims of educator sexual abuse at William R. Rogers Elementary School starting in the 1970-1971 school year. Two of the victims are 58 years old and the third is 56 years old. All three were examined by a qualified licensed mental health practitioner who through a Certificate of Merit concluded that, in her professional opinion, there is a reasonable basis to believe that the three women had been subject to childhood sexual abuse.
The lawsuit alleges that the abuse of all three girls began when they were first grade students in the classroom of William R. Rogers first grade teacher Floyd Piper. According to the complaint, the teacher would have female students wearing dresses sit on his lap during class and touch their private parts. Despite a parent raising concerns to the school vice-principal in or around the Spring of 1972, nothing was done to investigate or stop the abuse.
“The sad reality is that the effects of childhood sexual abuse have stayed with these women for more than five decades,” attorney Lauren Cerri said. “To say the abuse changed the lives of the three women is an understatement. They have lived with the guilt and the shame nearly their entire lives.”
Alum Rock Union School District is currently facing a sexual abuse scandal at Adelante Dual Language Academy, where music teacher Israel Santiago is facing criminal charges for abusing at least ten students. Santiago is accused of often holding the girls on his lap and hugging them tightly to his body along with cupping female student’s buttocks and in one case stroking the bare skin of a fourth grader’s back, underneath her bra strap.
Cerri has a successful track record litigating old sexual cases including the settlement of a four-decade old case against the Union School District in San Jose for $7.5 million. The case involved five grown men sexually abused by their teacher as young school children.
The lawsuit against the Union School District and this lawsuit against this Santa Clara County School District were brought under the auspices of AB 218. The law extended the statute of limitations, allowing older victims of childhood sexual abuse to file lawsuits.
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