A Surprise in Court: A School Board, Thought to Be Obsolete, Still Exists
By SAM ROBERTSOn Jan. 9, 2003, Jamie Perez was slashed by two fellow students at Evander Childs High School in the Bronx. He recovered, and his mother, Nancy Torres, sued the City of New York for negligence, claiming lax security.
Her lawyer, Richard J. Katz, might ordinarily have filed suit against the Board of Education, except that a year before the assault, the State Legislature had voted to vest the mayor with the power to appoint the schools chancellor and to replace the board with a Panel on Education Policy, a majority of whose members the mayor appointed.
City lawyers insisted nonetheless that Ms. Torres had sued the wrong party – that the education board was still liable. But a Bronx judge ruled that “in light of the wholesale transfer of power and responsibility from the Board of Education to the mayor, the city may not now shield itself from liability.” An appellate court, however, reversed the decision, in effect voiding Ms. Torres’s claim.
“The case got dismissed,” Mr. Katz said. “It was a travesty.”
A separate case now pending before the state’s highest court, the Court of