Steven F. v. Anaheim Union High School District

I

This case deals with the claims of the relatives of an injured person to recover for their own emotional distress occasioned by an injury that they did not witness and which the victim actively tried to conceal from them. Specifically, two parents have sued the Anaheim Union High School District for emotional distress when they discovered that their daughter, who had just completed the 11th grade, had been engaged in a sexual relationship with one of her teachers since early in the 10th grade (and who had touched her sexually before that).

The teacher went to jail. In the civil case against the district, the jury assessed total damages of more than $3 million, of which $640,000 was apportioned to the parents.

The district has appealed. While this appeal was pending all claims by the student against the district were settled. We deal here only with the parents’ claims against the district.

The discovery of the sexual relationship occurred in June 1997, when the student’s mother found a hidden collection of sexually explicit letters from the teacher that had been hidden in the daughter’s closet. The mother confronted her daughter about the letters and the sexual…