The family of a 12-year-old New Jersey girl who killed herself said Tuesday it will sue her school district for not stepping in to address the problem of cyber bullying. An attorney for the family of Mallory Grossman said he will file a notice of intent to sue the Rockaway Township school district for negligence. The notice is a required precursor to the filing of a lawsuit.
Mallory took her own life in June after months of bullying by several of her classmates, in person and through social media, her mother, Dianne Grossman, said Tuesday. Attorney Bruce Nagel said some of the messages were “vile and malicious.”
“For months she was told she was a loser, she had no friends, and finally she was told, ‘Why don’t you kill yourself?'” he said.
Dianne Grossman said she and her husband pleaded with school officials, to no avail. Nagel said he was considering suing the parents of some of the other students identified as the perpetrators of the bullying. He said he wasn’t concerned about potentially opening a Pandora’s box that could lead to an avalanche of lawsuits.
“That’s exactly what we’re looking to do in this case,” he said. “We want to open a Pandora’s box, we want to push against the hornet’s nest. We want to end this forever.”
