Jury selection and opening arguments were scheduled Monday in a civil trial involving the mother of a handicapped teenager who sued the Utah State School for the Deaf and Blind, accusing it of failing to protect her son from sexual molestation.
Kathi Sutton of Layton first filed suit in 3rd District Court in 1996 for $500,000. The case was later moved to federal court, where it was dismissed, but then remanded on appeal.
Sutton's son was 14 years old when he was touched by a much larger boy in a rest room at the Ogden school, according to the suit. Sutton has cerebral palsy, is blind, and cannot speak. He has the mental capacity of a young child, but his mother says after the incident he used sign language to explain that he was extremely upset and agitated.
Sutton said she immediately notified principal Dwight Moore and other school officials. They assured Sutton they would supervise her son's visits to the rest room, the lawsuit stated.
But a week later, the molestation occurred again. A juvenile court judge subsequently found an older deaf student guilty of gross lewdness and forcible sexual assault in the attacks.
Sutton claims in the lawsuit that the school and its principals were negligent because they failed to protect her son from the second instance of molestation. They had been notified of the potential for abuse, she said, and should have established procedures to protect her son.
The trial is scheduled to conclude on Friday.