Maryland Injury Law Center
The parents of a 13-year-old girl that committed suicide have sued a school system alleging the school should have been able to prevent her suicide.
Teenagers have been taking their own lives as long as history can remember. This tragedy has a modern twist. The girl did something that lots of young people are doing now: sexting. She texted a topless photo of herself to a boy. You know what happened. Teenage boys are not known for their discretion. Then the media picks up the story. Now, they don’t name names but anyone within 5 miles of the girl knows who it is. All of this culminates in the girl’s suicide. The parents’ wrongful death lawsuit alleges the school did not do enough to prevent the girl from committing suicide.
Many of you reading these first two paragraphs are rolling their eyes. How about some parental responsibility? They saw the same things as the school, maybe more, right? Right? Maybe not. The day before she committed suicide, the child met with the social worker at her middle school – middle school underscores the tragedy somehow – who had her sign a contract promising not to end her life. This would seem to be a detail that you might want to share with the parents. But the parents were not notified, at least according to the lawsuit.