Bill allowing lawsuits after child sex assaults at school could be narrowed

LINCOLN — The ongoing legislative fight to allow lawsuits against Nebraska schools for alleged negligence in cases of child sexual assault faces a tough road in 2025, as indicated by a Wednesday hearing.

Legislative Bill 156, by State Sen. Danielle Conrad of Lincoln, was the result of months of work to find “the most narrow approach possible” to revive a successful measure that passed 28-17 on the last day of the 2024 legislative session. Gov. Jim Pillen vetoed the bill after lawmakers had adjourned, arguing the measure was too broad and would unfairly burden taxpayers. Lawmakers had no opportunity to respond.

Conrad said LB 156, and a second proposal that mirrors the 2024 bill, represent a “promise” to a Lincoln family to keep fighting for the issue: Loree, Roger and Taylor Woods. 

Taylor Woods was sexually assaulted in 2016 while in a program through the Lincoln Public Schools. Her mother, Loree, had frequently testified urging letting families sue, even though it wouldn’t have affected the Woods family. Loree and her husband, Roger, died in a September accident.

“We shouldn’t afford special favors and protection because little kids are getting raped or sexually assaulted at schools … on public grounds or in a public institution,” Conrad said. “I think if there was ever a need to have a waiver for sovereign immunity, it’s for cases like Taylor.”

A narrower approach

The issue revolves around “sovereign immunity” and tort claims, or the idea that the government should be insulated from certain lawsuits and liabilities, in effect guarding taxpayer dollars.

Pillen said he vetoed the measure, stating it would “substantially erode” decades-old sovereign immunity protections and was too broad.

“We must hold perpetrators accountable and protect children from abuse by enforcing the criminal laws that exist and by targeting the wrongdoer,” Pillen said in his veto letter. “Taxpayers should not bear this burden.”

Conrad said LB 156 is in direct response to Pillen’s veto.

The Nebraska Supreme Court, in contentious rulings in 2020 regarding the death of an inmate and 2024 regarding foster care youths, the latter just after Pillen’s veto, has ruled that the prohibition on civil tort claims includes any claim where an “assault” has occurred, barring most litigants from even getting in the courthouse doors, Conrad and other senators have said.

Conrad’s bills, and the legislation from 2024 spearheaded by former State Sen. Justin Wayne of Omaha would create a narrow exception to sovereign immunity for crimes against children. Wayne helped usher through that bill as chair of the Judiciary Committee.

‘We were so close’: Nebraska mother responds to veto of child sexual assault and abuse bill

LB 156 would allow negligence lawsuits in cases of sexual assault of a child that occurred: 

• On school grounds.
• In a vehicle owned, leased or contracted by a school and being used for a school purpose.
• In a vehicle being driven for a school purpose by a school employee or designee.
• At a school-sponsored activity or athletic event.

The 2024 bill and this year’s copy of it, LB 236, would have allowed lawsuits beyond direct ties to a school, including child abuse, when such harm was the “proximate result” of the failure of any political subdivision or an employee to exercise “reasonable care” to protect the child.

Private entities, including private schools, can already be sued and held liable in these cases.

‘They failed me’

Elizabeth Eynon-Kokrda, general counsel for Education Rights Counsel, said she was in “truly vigorous support for LB 156 because, frankly, too many children are being sexually violated at school.” 

Lauren Micek Vargas, chief executive officer of Education Rights Counsel, supported the narrowed bill, stating that for more than 10 years she has represented several children who have been sexually trafficked.

“Unlike the movies,” Micek Vargas said, traffickers rarely kidnap kids and sell them into sex work. Instead, she said, predators groom children and are in positions of authority, targeting students’ vulnerabilities.

“We are asking for our most vulnerable students to be protected, and we’re asking for your assistance,” Micek Vargas said.

Eynon-Kokrda said the organization represented two clients in the last year who were raped at school. Both were unmonitored, she said, and each predator had a “worrisome history.” Each survivor was also a child with significant special needs.

Micek Vargas gave the committee a list of such arrests in 2024 alone, including school officials in Omaha, Madison, Maywood and North Platte. Earlier this year, a principal in Stapleton was arrested, and a Papillion-La Vista school psychologist was arrested Tuesday.

One mother writing to the committee, who planned to appear in person but had a family emergency, said her daughter in middle school was raped this school year. The mother said her daughter’s individual education plan was not followed, and the mother alleged that the boy who raped her daughter “was known to prey upon children with disabilities.”

“I trusted the school and they failed me,” the letter said. “They failed my daughter, and I still don’t know all the consequences of that failure.”

Proactive vs. reactive

Opposing both of Conrad’s bills was Brandy Johnson, on behalf of the Nebraska Intergovernmental Risk Management Association; Chuck Wilbrand of Knudsen Law Firm in Lincoln, representing a public entity school insurance pool (ALICAP); Elaine Menzel, on behalf of the state associations for county attorneys, sheriffs and county officials; and Jennifer Huxoll, civil litigation bureau chief for the Attorney General’s Office.

Menzel also opposed LB 236 on behalf of the Nebraska League of Nebraska Municipalities.

Huxoll, as she said in August when Wayne tried to revive the legislation in the summer special session on property taxes, said that few days go by without a headline regarding child pornography, sex trafficking or child sexual assault. She said law enforcement, local governments and lawmakers are working to combat those crimes.

“These two bills, however, will not reduce crimes against children,” Huxoll said. “They will simply make our friends and neighbors of Nebraska financially responsible for judgments resulting from harms caused by criminals.”

Johnson and Wilbrand said their organizations provide training and work to be proactive, not out of fear of being sued but to genuinely help children.

“The bad actor is the one that caused this, and that’s what the trainings are supposed to be addressing,” Wilbrand said.

Johnson said she has learned that local governments do try to do all they can to be proactive, yet the “evil perpetrator is often hiding in plain sight, doing their best to conceal their actions.”

“It’s not as easy as it might seem for a government or school to be able to foresee or prevent those situations,” Johnson said.

Sovereign immunity concerns

Huxoll, echoing Pillen, said that if LB 156 were to become law, even narrowly, it would become easier for lawmakers to chip away and allow more lawsuits against local governments.

Heather Schmidt, a Lincoln mother who supported the bill, said she understands and appreciates the concern that taxpayers would be liable for costs related to crimes they didn’t commit.

“That being said, there has to be a mechanism to hold enablers accountable,” she said.

Conrad also pointed to comments from former State Sen. Julie Slama of Dunbar who challenged opponents of the 2024 bill who argued the change would raise taxes.

“How many child molesters is your school district employing if it’s going to impact your bottom line?” she asked during the 2024 debate.

Other supporters of the law have said the lawsuits would allow an attempt, but not a guarantee, at financial rewards that could help a child with medical care or counseling that they might need for the rest of their lives.

Conrad and Wayne, both lawyers, have said attorneys have an ethical duty against filing frivolous claims.

Appeal to conservative committee

Cameron Guenzel, representing the Nebraska Association of Trial Attorneys, supported the same measure as last year but opposed Conrad’s LB 156 being narrowed to schools.

He said the bill doesn’t go far enough and that the rule as interpreted by the Nebraska Supreme Court just five years ago “makes no sense.”

Guenzel gave an example of a school hiring a bus driver where officials knew something was wrong but negligently hired the bus driver anyway. 

If the driver had a pattern of being drunk and later injured students while driving under the influence, the district could be sued for negligence. But if the driver was known to be prone to violence and later assaulted students, Guenzel said, the school could not be sued, because it included an “assault.”

Guenzel said the current law shields bad actors and discourages accountability.

Guenzel said he is a concealed carry permit holder who has “choose life” license plates, and who hasn’t voted for a Democrat since when he was a “wide-eyed college kid” voting for Barack Obama in 2008. He said that when he has talked about the issue with people in his “circles,” who have views similar to him, they were surprised when he said there was no recourse for such families and that they don’t view the issue as political.

Jennifer Turco Meyer, president-elect of the Nebraska Trial Attorneys Association, had a similar message.

“If we think justice and accountability work in the criminal context, we can’t skip over and leave out civil justice in terms of how it will affect the way that school districts and law enforcement agencies take care of the most vulnerable people in our society, which are children,” she said.

Something is better than nothing

The departure of a large class of lawmakers this January, many in favor of Wayne’s past bill, could add to  the uphill climb to get a similar measure moving this year, even if narrowed.

That was evident in multiple back-and-forth conversations Wednesday with freshman State Sens. Tanya Storer of Whitman, who succeeded former State Sen. Tom Brewer in north-central Nebraska, and Bob Hallstrom of Syracuse, who succeeded Slama. Conrad said she would be willing to further narrow her bill. Brewer and Slama both supported last year’s measure.

In response, Conrad said she could consider reducing allowable relief (already a maximum of $1 million), capping attorney fees or increasing the negligence standard for such a case.

“A step forward is better than status quo,” Conrad told the committee.

The 2024 measure had received bipartisan support. 

Among key conservative supporters were former State Sens. Lou Ann Linehan of the Elkhorn area, Steve Erdman of Bayard and Halloran, as well as Brewer and Slama, who helped pass the bill, as did Wayne, raising the proposal for weeks before the final votes.

The new chair of the Judiciary Committee, State Sen. Carolyn Bosn of Lincoln, led opposition to Wayne’s bill. Either of Conrad’s bills would require at least five votes on committee to advance. This year, four senators are new.

Conrad has selected the narrow LB 156 as her 2025 priority bill, increasing the chances it could be debated if advanced from committee.

“Our job and the law’s job is to ensure justice for people who are without justice, which is where we find ourselves today in regards to little kids of sexual assault at their schools and their schools had a hand in it,” Conrad said. “Whatever we need to do to figure out, make it work better, I hope that we can do that together.”