A judge Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit against Los Angeles Unified filed by a man who claimed he was sexually molested by a science teacher at a Hollywood school in the 1980s.
Los Angeles Superior Court Bradley S. Phillips heard arguments on the LAUSD's dismissal motion, briefly took the case under submission, and later in the day ruled in favor of the district.
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In their court papers, LAUSD lawyers argued that the district was immune from liability for any misconduct teacher Rodolphe Demordaigle may have committed off campus and/or beyond regular school hours.
"The school district had no notice that Mr. Demordaigle committed any sort of alleged misconduct with anyone until he was arrested in 1997, on an unrelated case," the LAUSD lawyers stated in their court papers.
In a pretrial deposition cited by the plaintiff, Demordaigle said that in the early days of his career, teachers were encouraged to bring students to the teachers' homes.
"This is a requirement and we were urged to do this by the principal," Rodolphe Demordaigle said in a pretrial deposition while answering questions of his memories at the East Los Angeles School. "And we weren't held back from the students in any way at all."
Demordaigle said the rules at LAUSD did not change until a dozen or so years later.
"It was the issue with the priests," Demordaigle said. "There was the issue with the preschool in Manhattan Beach, where the children were making accusations of the teachers and eventually it was all found to be false."
Demordaigle also testified he did not receive any training about childhood sexual abuse nor was he given any bulletins regarding the subject.
In his lawsuit, the plaintiff, identified as R.V., claimed that his science teacher at Le Conte Middle School, Demordaigle, hosted monthly dinner visits with R.V. and other students at his home.
In 1983, Demordaigle took R.V. and another student to the mountains to collect rocks, then directed R.V. to engage in mutual inappropriate touching later at the teacher's home, the suit alleged.
The ensuing Monday, R.V. returned to school, where the head counselor told R.V. to never go anywhere in a vehicle with Demordaigle again, according to the suit, which further stated that other pupils, in reference to Demordaigle, would call the teacher a "creepy weirdo" who "particularly favored Spanish children."
The school's head counselor and vice principal later began sitting in and monitoring Demordaigle's classes, the suit stated. However, Demordaigle still managed to molest R.V. up to 12 more times in his classroom, even while other students and a teacher's assistant were present, the suit alleged.
Demordaigle pleaded guilty to child molestation in 1997 while still employed by the LAUSD and he was permitted to go to a high school for about four months to set up lessons for substitute teachers, according to the suit, which stated that Demordaigle said "there must have been touching, but definitely nothing like sodomy."
Demordaigle was allowed to retire at age 55 with a pension, the suit filed in November 2021 stated.
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