Phoebe Prince's Parents Settled School District Lawsuit for $225,000
The parents of Phoebe Prince, a 15-year-old girl who committed suicide after months of bullying at a Massachusetts high school in January 2010, settled a lawsuit with their daughter's school district for $225,000.
The settlement was reached over a year ago, but the details were only disclosed on Tuesday when a journalist won a court order to release the information that had previously been sealed, according to the Associated Press.
In July 2010, Prince's parents, Jeremy Prince and Anne O'Brien, filed a complaint against the South Hadley Public School District with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination. They claimed that the school district did not do enough to protect their daughter from bullying.
While school administrators were allegedly informed about the bullying from students and Phoebe's mother, they were accused of taking no action.
In November 2010, they family reached an agreement and withdrew the complaint but the amount of the settlement was not revealed.
Phoebe Prince moved with her family from Ireland to South Hadley, Mass., in 2009. She entered South Hadley High School and began a brief relationship with Sean Mulveyhill, 18. The relationship apparently angered Mulveyhill's former girlfriend, Kayla Narey, 18, and even though Prince and Mulveyhill eventually stopped dating Narey and her friends continued to bully and harass Prince in person and online.
Phoebe hanged herself Jan. 14, 2010. Her younger sister found her body in the family's second-story apartment. Prince's bullying-related suicide was one of the first cases to initiate a national anti-bullying movement.
Mulveyhill and Narey both pleaded guilty to criminal harassment in Hampshire Superior Court and were sentenced to a year's probation and community service.
