Supreme Court agrees Waterford bus driver's sex assaults may be gender discrimination
TRENTON – A family suing Waterford’s school district over sexual assaults of a 5-year-old girl on a school bus has won a long-sought victory before New Jersey’s Supreme Court.
The high court ruled the victim and her parents can pursue claims that the attacks by a bus aide violated the girl’s rights under the state’s Law Against Discrimination.
The 6-0 decision overturned two previous rulings against the family — by a trial judge in 2017 and by an appeals court last year.
“This has been a long, tough fight but it was for a good cause and for great clients,” said Leo Dubler, a Mount Laurel attorney who represented the girl, C.V., and her parents.
“After years of fighting, I’m glad that C.V. will get to pursue this claim,” said Dubler, who applauded the family’s “determination and courage.”
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According to the Sept. 12 ruling, C.V. was repeatedly assaulted between December 2009 and April 2010 by Alfred Dean, a 76-year-old school bus aide.
The girl's parents discovered the abuse when the child came home one day without her underwear, the decision said.
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It said Dean, with the driver’s knowledge, had children sit on his lap and covered a camera in the small bus prior to the assaults.
The ruling also noted an arbiter’s ruling in a similar case involving a 4-year-old girl on C.V’s bus “found that Dean played ‘games’ with the children he abused (and) brought them stuffed animals (before assaulting them)."
Dean later pleaded guilty to aggravated sexual assault and spent more than eight years at a state facility for sex offenders.
The lawsuit, filed in May 2014, seeks damages for civil rights violations by Waterford’s school board and school district, as well as bus operator T&L Transportation.
“The Law Against Discrimination does not just protect employees,” said Dubler. “It also protects people in public places, including in schools and on the school bus.”
C.V. and her parents previously settled negligence claims made against the Waterford district and the bus firm.
Attorneys for the defendants could not be reached for immediate comment.
Law Against Discrimination protects against sexual harassment
The Supreme Court's 41-page decision reversed lower-court decisions that found Dean did not target C.V. on account of her sex.
It said a 1993 ruling established “sexual touching of areas of the body linked to sexuality happens, by definition, because of sex."
The decision "got it 100 percent right," said Dubler. "They undid a published Appellate Division decision that was a setback for LAD and a blow for harassment victims in New Jersey.'
Among other findings, the high court rejected the appeals court’s view that no evidence showed Dean targeted only girls on the bus.
It said evidence included the case of the 4-year-old girl and the bus driver’s statement that Dean played “magic wands” only with girls.
The Supreme Court also faulted the appellate finding that Dean’s assaults were “fueled by his pedophilia, and not gender discrimination.”
The appeals court came to that conclusion after noting Dean had victimized at least one boy under different circumstances.
The Supreme Court instead cited an argument made in support of C.V.’s lawsuit by the state Attorney General’s Office.
It said the appeal court’s view “is akin to stating a supervisor who repeatedly sexually abused female employees could not face LAD liability because he had once sexually molested a single male, decades before, outside of work.”
It also noted the Division on Civil Rights defines sexual harassment to automatically encompass all “physical conduct of a sexual nature.”
Jim Walsh is a senior reporter for the Courier-Post, Burlington County Times and The Daily Journal. Email: Jwalsh@cpsj.com.
This article originally appeared on Cherry Hill Courier-Post: NJ Supreme Court rules sex-assault victim can sue under bias law
