Ohio School Hazing & Sexual Assault: What the Law Gives Your Family When the Institution Failed Your Child
You are reading this at an hour when no parent should be awake. Your son went to football camp. He came back hurt in a way that does not show on a uniform. A coach knew. He said “boys being boys.” And now the photographs are on Snapchat, and the people who should have protected him are the ones circling your family. We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. We take Ohio school-hazing and sexual-assault cases, and the first thing we want you to know is this: what happened to your child is not a tradition, it is not a mistake, and it is not something the law lets anyone dismiss with four words. It is a crime, it is a federal civil-rights violation, and under Ohio law, it is a civil cause of action that reaches every adult and every institution that let it happen.
Ralph Manginello, our managing partner, is currently lead counsel in an active hazing lawsuit — and the reason that matters to you is not the result of that case, which is still in litigation. It matters because the architecture of a hazing case — the forensic extraction of disappearing digital evidence, the reconstruction of who knew what and when, the depositions of coaches who minimized what they saw, the life-care planning for a child whose psychological injuries will outlast every scar — is architecture we are building right now, in real time, in a case that shares the same DNA as what happened at that Ohio football camp. Our hazing practice page covers the full scope of what these cases demand. The active litigation we are conducting is the proof that we know how to build them.
What Happened at That Football Camp: The Allegations in the Federal Complaint
According to the 200-page federal complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, here is what a family says happened to their son. We say “alleges” because that is the honest word — a complaint is an accusation, not a verdict. But the accusation itself is devastating, and every detail in it is a piece of evidence that must be preserved before it disappears.
In June 2025, a minor student-athlete at Ursuline High School in Youngstown, Ohio, left for a nine-day football camp trip. He was a football player. He was a child in the custody of adults who were legally responsible for his safety. On that trip, according to the complaint, multiple teammates sexually assaulted him. They recorded the assault. They shared the recording in a Snapchat group. One photograph in that group showed a pair of underwear with the caption “RIP” — rest in peace — followed by the victim’s name. That is not a prank. That is a trophy. And under federal and Ohio law, the creation and distribution of that image is the production and dissemination of child pornography — a separate and serious federal crime layered on top of the assault itself.
On the fifth day of the trip, the complaint says, the victim’s mother spoke directly to one of the coaches about what was happening to her son. The coach’s response, as alleged in the complaint, was four words:
“Boys being boys.”
No remorse. No surprise. No call to law enforcement. No removal of the accused players. No protection of the child. Four words that, if proven, are the single most powerful piece of evidence in this entire case — because they are the words of an adult who had legal custody of a minor and chose to dismiss his sexual assault as a cultural reflex. After the lawsuit was filed, the family reported retaliatory communications — the mother received intimidating messages from another parent, and the son received a hostile communication from one of the players named in the suit. Other families have reportedly come forward with their own allegations of hazing and sexual violence at the school.
The Catholic Diocese of Youngstown, which oversees Ursuline High School, issued a public statement. We will quote it directly because it is now part of the public record and because the gap between what it says and what the complaint alleges is the case:
“The Diocese of Youngstown is aware of news reports regarding a lawsuit filed by one of our former Ursuline High School families. While detailed responses will only be made through the court process, the Diocese and Ursuline High School conducted a timely investigation, cooperated with the appropriate authorities, and took immediate actions to protect Ursuline High School students. No further statements will be made regarding this matter. Bishop Bonnar prays for peace and healing for all those involved.”
That statement raises more questions than it answers. If the investigation was “timely,” why was the coach allegedly unaware of the abuse until the mother called him on day five of a nine-day trip? If the school took “immediate actions,” why was a coach on that trip who apparently did not know — or did not act — when a child was being assaulted under his supervision? Those questions are what discovery is for. And discovery only works if the evidence still exists when we ask for it.
Ohio’s Anti-Hazing Law: Collin’s Law and Your Family’s Civil Rights
Ohio changed its legal landscape on hazing when the legislature passed Collin’s Law — Senate Bill 126 — which strengthened the state’s anti-hazing protections and created or expanded a civil cause of action that reaches the participants, the institution, and the officials who knew or should have known. Under Ohio’s anti-hazing statute, a person subjected to hazing may bring a civil action for injury or damages against the participants, the organization, and any official who knew or should have known of the hazing. That is the spine of the state-law claim in this case. It means the school cannot simply say “we didn’t know” — if they should have known, they are on the hook.
The standard matters here. “Should have known” is a constructive-knowledge standard, and in a nine-day overnight football camp with coaches present, it is nearly impossible for the school to argue it had no reason to suspect that something was happening to a child on the trip. The camp is a 24/7 environment. The coaches are in loco parentis — standing in the place of parents. The school’s duty is not to wait for a report; it is to supervise, to watch, to notice. When a child is being sexually assaulted by multiple teammates over days, the signs are there — and the law asks whether the adults in charge were paying attention.
Ohio’s comparative negligence rules generally do not bar recovery in intentional tort cases involving minors. That matters because the defense may try to argue the victim “participated” or “went along” — and Ohio law does not let them erase the case on that basis. The defendant takes the victim as they find them, and a child cannot consent to being sexually assaulted.
The Mandated Reporter Law: What the Coach Was Legally Required to Do
Ohio Revised Code § 2151.421 is not a suggestion. It is a criminal statute. It requires school employees — and that includes coaches — to report suspected child abuse or neglect immediately to law enforcement or child protective services. The failure to do so is a criminal offense. And in a civil courtroom, a mandated reporter’s failure to report is per se negligence — meaning the failure itself proves the breach of duty, without the family having to prove anything else about what the coach should have done differently.
Think about what that means for the “boys being boys” response. If the mother told a coach that her son was being sexually assaulted, and the coach did not immediately call law enforcement or children’s services, the coach violated Ohio criminal law in that moment. The school that employed that coach and sent him on that trip is responsible for that violation. The Diocese that oversees the school is responsible for the system that put a coach in a position of authority over children and never trained him — or never enforced the training — on what to do when a parent reports abuse.
This is where the gap between the Diocese’s public statement and the complaint’s allegations becomes legally significant. “Conducted a timely investigation” and “cooperated with the appropriate authorities” are phrases that sound responsive. But if the coach on the trip was told on day five and did nothing, the question is not whether the Diocese investigated after the fact. The question is whether the adults with custody of the child reported when the law required them to — immediately, not after a family hires a lawyer.
Title IX: The Federal Law That Makes the School Answer in Federal Court
Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 is the federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination — including sexual harassment and sexual assault — in any educational program receiving federal financial assistance. The statutory text is direct:
“No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”
When a student is sexually assaulted by teammates during a school-sponsored football camp, that is sexual harassment under Title IX. When the school knows about it — and the complaint says the coach was told on day five — and responds with deliberate indifference, the school has violated Title IX. “Deliberate indifference” is the legal standard, and it means the school knew about the harassment and was clearly unreasonable in its response. “Boys being boys” is not a response. It is the absence of a response. And the absence of a response, when a child is being sexually assaulted under your supervision, is the definition of deliberate indifference.
The federal complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, which sits in Youngstown — the seat of Mahoning County. The Northern District of Ohio is known for sophisticated handling of civil-rights and Title IX claims. A federal judge in that courthouse will decide whether the school’s response, as alleged, meets the deliberate-indifference standard. The families of Youngstown should know that this court — their court — is a forum that takes these claims seriously.
The Institutional Stack: Who Is Responsible and How Deep the Money Goes
A school hazing sexual assault case is never one defendant. It is a stack, and the families who recover full value are the ones whose lawyers name every layer. Here is the stack in this case, as the complaint maps it:
The Catholic Diocese of Youngstown sits at the top. The Diocese oversees Ursuline High School. It is the institutional parent. In Ohio, charitable immunity for religious institutions is severely limited in cases involving the sexual abuse of minors — meaning the Diocese cannot hide behind a charitable-immunity shield the way it might in a slip-and-fall case. The Diocese is the entity with the assets and the insurance tower.
Ursuline High School is the operating institution — the entity that ran the football program, organized the camp, hired the coaches, and accepted custody of the children. Its duty was to maintain a safe environment. Its Title IX obligations attach here.
The head football coach and coaching staff are the adults who were physically present on the trip. Their duty was to supervise, to protect, and to report. If they knew — or should have known — and failed to act, they are individually liable, and the school is vicariously responsible for their failures.
The principal and assistant principal are the administrators whose duty was to implement anti-hazing policies, to train coaches on mandated reporting, and to ensure that a nine-day overnight trip had adequate supervision. If those policies did not exist, or existed only on paper, the administrators’ neglect is the school’s neglect.
The eleven individual student tortfeasors who participated in the assault are directly liable for assault, battery, and the illegal recording and distribution of the material. Their parents, under Ohio law, may face statutory liability for the intentional torts of their minor children — and potentially negligent-supervision claims if they knew or should have known their children were capable of this.
The Diocese’s insurance tower is the deep pocket here. Religious organizations of this scale typically carry layered commercial general liability coverage, possibly with excess and umbrella layers above the primary. The exact coverage limits and whether the policies contain assault-and-battery exclusions — which are common and are the single biggest coverage fight in institutional sexual-assault cases — are questions for discovery. But the structure means there is money behind the institution, and the purpose of a federal lawsuit is to reach it.
The Digital Evidence Crisis: Snapchat, Child Pornography, and the Clock That Is Already Running
The Snapchat evidence in this case is simultaneously the most powerful proof and the most endangered. Snapchat is designed to disappear. Its architecture — disappearing messages, auto-deleting stories, screenshot notifications that tell the sender when someone captures an image — was built for impermanence. That design is a crisis for a family trying to prove what happened.
Here is what exists and how fast it can die:
The Snapchat group content itself. The photographs, videos, and messages shared in the group are the direct evidence of the assault, the participants, and the distribution network. Snapchat’s own infrastructure may retain metadata — sender identifiers, timestamps, delivery records — but the content is volatile. A user can delete it. Snapchat’s servers may purge it on their own retention schedule. A preservation demand to Snapchat’s parent company must go out immediately, and it must be specific — naming the group, the accounts, the time period. Snapchat’s law-enforcement portal and civil-subpoena process exist, but they operate on their own timeline, and the company is not going to hold evidence indefinitely on its own initiative.
The participants’ devices. Every phone that received or sent content in that Snapchat group is a potential evidence repository — saved screenshots, downloaded videos, cached data in the app’s storage. These phones are in the hands of the accused students and their families. The moment the lawsuit was filed — or the moment those families realized they might be sued — the temptation to “lose” a phone, to factory-reset it, or to delete the app became very real. A litigation-hold letter to each family and their counsel, demanding preservation of all devices, must go out now, not next month.
The coaches’ and administrators’ cell phones. The mother called the coach on day five. That call — its timestamp, its duration, and any text messages around it — is direct proof of actual notice. If the coach’s phone is “lost,” “replaced,” or “wiped,” the single most important piece of institutional-notice evidence could vanish. The same applies to any text messages or calls between coaches, between the coach and the administration, or between the administration and the Diocese after the mother’s report. A preservation demand targeting every device belonging to every adult who was on that trip or who received a report must be served immediately.
The football camp itinerary and chaperone logs. These establish the structure of supervision — or the lack of it. Who was assigned to which room? How many adults were present overnight? Were there room checks? Were there curfews? Were there any documented incidents during the trip? These records should exist, but they are paper, and paper can be altered, backdated, or “misplaced.”
The school’s disciplinary and Title IX records. If the school conducted the “timely investigation” it claims, there should be a Title IX file — interview notes, findings, disciplinary actions, communications with the family. That file is discoverable. It also shows whether the school followed federal and state reporting mandates. If the file is thin, missing, or appears to have been created after the fact, that gap is itself evidence.
The defense’s hope in this case is that the digital evidence disappears before anyone with the authority to demand it does so. The plaintiffs’ hope — and our job — is to freeze it first. The preservation letter that goes out the day a family calls us is the single most important document in the first month of this case. Not the complaint. Not the demand letter. The preservation letter.
The Medicine of What Was Done to Your Child
We need to talk about what happened to your son’s brain, because the defense will. They will call it “distress.” They will call it “upset.” They will point to the absence of a cast, a scar, a visible wound, and they will say the harm is exaggerated. The medicine says otherwise.
Post-traumatic stress disorder is not a mood. It is a formal psychiatric diagnosis with eight separate diagnostic criteria under the DSM-5, and a survivor has to meet every one of them: the traumatic event itself, the intrusive memories and nightmares that will not stop, the avoidance of anything that reminds the brain of what happened, the negative changes in thought and mood, the alterations in arousal and reactivity — hypervigilance, exaggerated startle, concentration problems, sleep problems — lasting more than a month and causing real impairment in the ability to function. A child who was sexually assaulted by multiple teammates, whose assault was photographed and distributed, and who then learned that the adults charged with protecting him called it “boys being boys” — that child meets every criterion. This is not speculation. It is the diagnostic framework every treating psychiatrist and psychologist will apply.
And here is something the science is clear about: rape is the single most PTSD-causing event researchers have measured. Not combat. Not car crashes. Not natural disasters. In the landmark National Comorbidity Survey, rape carried the highest conditional probability of producing post-traumatic stress disorder of any traumatic event studied — for both men and women. When a property owner or a school ignores a known danger and a child is sexually assaulted, the lifelong harm that follows is not a surprise outcome. It is the most predictable outcome in trauma medicine.
One more thing the defense will exploit, and the science answers: if your son froze — if he did not fight back, did not scream, did not run — the defense will imply that means consent or that it was not really an assault. The medicine destroys that argument. Tonic immobility — the involuntary, brainstem-mediated paralysis that locks the body during certain assaults — is a recognized, documented survival reflex, not a choice. In clinical studies, the majority of sexual-assault survivors experienced significant or extreme tonic immobility during the assault. The body’s brakes slam on. The muscles lock. The voice does not come. The survivor who froze was not consenting. The survivor who froze was experiencing the most severe form of the assault, and clinical data show those survivors go on to suffer PTSD at far higher rates.
The lifetime economic cost of rape — medical care, therapy, lost productivity — was estimated by federal public-health researchers at more than $122,000 per survivor, in 2014 dollars. That figure does not include the nightmares, the marriage that strains, the friendships that dissolve, the school the child has to leave, or the permanent digital record of the assault that exists on other people’s phones. It is the floor, not the ceiling.
What This Case Is Worth
We do not promise numbers. Every case depends on its facts, and anyone who tells you a specific dollar figure before they have seen the evidence is not being honest. But the framework for valuation in a case like this — a minor sexually assaulted during a school-sponsored trip, the assault recorded and distributed as child pornography, the institution on actual notice and responding with deliberate indifference, and ongoing retaliation — is substantial.
The economic damages include past and future specialized psychological counseling and psychiatric care, the cost of a necessary school transfer (this family has already left the school — the Diocese’s own statement calls them “former” families), and the long-term impact on educational trajectory and earning capacity. A child whose high school experience is destroyed by sexual assault may carry the consequences into college admissions, career choices, and lifetime earnings.
The non-economic damages are the heart of this case: the profound emotional distress, the loss of enjoyment of life, the permanent stigma associated with the digital distribution of the assault, the betrayal by the adults who were supposed to protect him, and the retaliation that followed the family’s decision to seek justice. A child who learns that the adults in his world will not protect him — and will punish him for speaking — carries a wound that does not heal on a therapist’s schedule.
Punitive damages are highly likely in this case. The deliberate-indifference standard — crystallized in the alleged “boys being boys” response — demonstrates a conscious disregard for the victim’s safety. When a coach is told a child is being sexually assaulted and responds with a shrug, the jury is entitled to hear evidence that supports punitive damages, and in a case involving the sexual abuse of a minor by an institution that held itself out as a protector, juries have shown they will use that power.
Based on the combination of physical sexual assault, the digital “forever” nature of the pornography distributed, the institutional failure after direct notice, and the retaliatory environment, this case falls within a range that includes seven-figure recoveries at the floor and potentially eight-figure outcomes at the high end, consistent with major Title IX and institutional-abuse settlements in the Northern District of Ohio. Those are not promises. They are the mathematical reality of what a jury in Mahoning County — or a federal judge in the Northern District — would be asked to value when a school failed a child this completely.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
The Defense Playbook: What the Institution Will Try
We know the defense because Lupe Peña, our associate attorney, spent years on the other side — inside a national insurance-defense firm, in the rooms where adjusters and their software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue claims exactly like yours. He sat where the defense sits. Now he sits on our side of the table, and the first thing he tells every family is what the other side is already planning.
Play 1: The “We Already Investigated” Defense. The Diocese has already issued its statement — “conducted a timely investigation, cooperated with the appropriate authorities, and took immediate actions.” This is the institutional reflex: get ahead of the narrative, frame the response as responsible, and hope the public accepts the characterization without examining the timeline. The counter is simple and devastating: if the investigation was timely, why was the coach allegedly unaware until day five? If the actions were immediate, why did the mother have to call the coach herself? Discovery will test the Diocese’s statement against the contemporaneous records, and if the records do not match the public-relations narrative, the gap is the case.
Play 2: The “Isolated Incident” Argument. The school will argue this was a one-time event, an aberration, a group of boys who made a bad decision that no one could have predicted. The counter is twofold: first, the law of foreseeability — a nine-day overnight football camp with inadequate supervision creates the conditions for hazing, and the school knows this because every school that runs these trips knows it. Second, the complaint says other families have come forward with their own allegations of hazing and sexual violence at the school. If that is true, this was not an isolated incident. It was a pattern, and a pattern proves notice.
Play 3: The “Boys Will Be Boys” Minimization. The defense will try to reframe the coach’s alleged response as an informal, offhand comment rather than a deliberate institutional choice to ignore a report of sexual assault. The counter is the mandated-reporter statute. Ohio Revised Code § 2151.421 does not have a “boys being boys” exception. When a coach is told a child is being sexually assaulted, the law requires immediate reporting — not a colloquialism, not a shrug, not a cultural reflex. The four words are not a defense. They are an admission.
Play 4: The Retaliation Pressure. The family is already experiencing it — intimidating communications from other parents, hostile messages to the child. The defense’s allies — and we use that word deliberately — will try to make the family pay for speaking out, to isolate them, to make the social cost of pursuing justice higher than the legal cost of dropping the case. The counter is a federal court’s power to issue protective orders and preliminary injunctions. Retaliation against a plaintiff in a federal civil-rights case is not just a social problem. It is evidence of a predatory culture, and it is a separate basis for damages. We tell every family: do not respond to any communication from any parent or player. Forward every message, every email, every call to us. Each one is evidence.
Play 5: The Coverage Shell Game. The Diocese’s insurer — or insurers — will examine the policy for exclusions. Many commercial general liability policies contain assault-and-battery exclusions or abuse-and-molestation exclusions that attempt to bar coverage for sexual assault claims. The insurer’s first move will be to argue the policy does not cover what happened. The counter requires reading the actual policy, identifying whether the exclusion applies to the institutional negligence claims (as opposed to the direct assault claims), and pursuing the coverage through the layers — primary, excess, and umbrella — that the Diocese maintains. The money exists. The insurer’s job is to make you think it does not. Our job is to find it.
How We Build the Case: The Proof Story
Here is how a school hazing sexual assault case is actually built, from the day you call to the day a number is on the table. We are not describing what we have done on this case — we have taken no action yet. We are describing the process we follow, the same process we are executing right now in our active hazing litigation.
Week one: the preservation letter. The first document is not a complaint. It is a litigation-hold and evidence-preservation demand, sent to the school, the Diocese, every coach, every administrator, the families of every accused student, and Snapchat’s parent company. It names every category of evidence — Snapchat content and metadata, cell phones, camp records, Title IX files, disciplinary records, communication logs — and it puts every recipient on notice that destruction of any of it will be treated as spoliation. The day you call is the day that letter is drafted.
Weeks two through four: the forensic digital extraction. Snapchat preservation demands work on the company’s timeline, not ours, so they go out immediately. Meanwhile, we work with digital-forensics experts to identify what can be recovered from the devices that are accessible — the victim’s phone, the mother’s phone (for the call records and any texts with the coach), and any other family devices. The goal is to establish the timeline: when the assault happened, when the Snapchat group was created, when the content was distributed, when the mother called the coach, and what happened — or did not happen — after.
Months one through three: the records avalanche. Discovery in a federal Title IX case against a school and a diocese is enormous. We demand the school’s Title IX policies, its anti-hazing policies, its training records for coaches, its mandated-reporter training records, the camp itinerary and chaperone schedule, every incident report, every disciplinary record, every communication between the school and the Diocese, and the insurance policies. The school will object. We will push. The 200-page complaint was filed to overwhelm the defense’s ability to manage discovery — and the strategy works because the school has to produce or face sanctions.
Months three through six: the depositions. This is where the case is won. The head coach sits across the table and has to explain, under oath, what he knew and when. The “boys being boys” comment — if it was made — gets locked in. The principal has to explain the school’s policies and whether they were followed. The Diocese’s representative has to explain the “timely investigation” claim. The accused students sit for depositions — and their parents sit for depositions about what they knew and what they did when they found out. Every deposition is a chance to lock in a narrative that cannot change at trial.
Months six through twelve: the expert case. A child psychologist or psychiatrist establishes the PTSD diagnosis and its lifelong trajectory. A school-safety expert establishes that the school’s response deviated from the standard of care. A life-care planner builds the cost stream — years of therapy, psychiatric medication, the potential need for a residential treatment program, the educational impact. A forensic economist reduces it all to present value. The number at the end of the case is built from all of this — not from a formula, but from the accumulated weight of every record, every deposition, and every expert opinion.
The First 72 Hours: What Your Family Needs to Do Now
If you are reading this and your child has been the victim of hazing or sexual assault at a school in Ohio — whether at Ursuline, at another school in Youngstown, or anywhere in the state — here is what matters in the first 72 hours.
Medical and psychological care first. Your child needs a trauma-informed evaluation, and the sooner the better. The symptoms of PTSD — nightmares, intrusive memories, avoidance, hypervigilance — can appear within days, and a contemporaneous medical and psychological record is the single most powerful proof that the injury is real and connected to the event. Do not wait to see if it “passes.” Take your child to a qualified mental-health professional who can document what they observe. If there is any physical evidence of the assault, a forensic examination should be considered immediately, before that evidence is lost.
Do not communicate with the school, the coaches, the Diocese, or any parent of the accused students. Every word you say can and will be used against your family. The school’s statement is already a carefully lawyered public-relations document. The coaches have likely been told not to speak. The parents of the accused students are not your friends. If anyone contacts you — including the retaliatory communications this family has reported — do not respond. Screenshot everything. Forward it to counsel. Every message is evidence.
Do not post on social media. Do not comment on news articles. Do not respond to comments. The defense is watching, and anything you say publicly can be taken out of context. Your silence is not weakness. It is discipline.
Preserve every piece of digital evidence you have. Your child’s phone. Your phone. Any screenshots your child took. Any messages from other parents. Any communications from the school. Do not delete anything — even messages that seem irrelevant or hostile. Back up every device to a secure location. If your child’s phone is damaged, do not discard it. It is evidence.
Call a lawyer who has built hazing cases before. Not a general personal-injury lawyer. Not a friend who handles divorces. A trial lawyer who has actually built a hazing and institutional-negligence case — who knows how to send the preservation letter that freezes the Snapchat evidence before it disappears, who knows how to depose a coach who said “boys being boys,” who knows how to value a child’s lifetime of trauma in a federal courtroom. The call is free. The consultation is confidential. And the day you call is the day the clock starts working for your family instead of against you.
Why This Firm
Ralph Manginello has spent 27 years in courtrooms, including federal court. He is a journalist by training and a trial lawyer by calling — a competitor who hates losing and a writer who knows that the story of what happened to your child has to be told to a jury in a way they cannot unhear. He is currently lead counsel in an active hazing lawsuit that involves the same institutional architecture — the same failures of supervision, the same code of silence, the same institutional instinct to minimize — that we see in this Ohio case. That experience is not a result on your case. It is the reason we know how to build yours.
Lupe Peña spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm. He sat in the rooms where adjusters decided how to devalue claims. He knows how the software prices pain. He knows which doctors the defense sends plaintiffs to for “independent” medical exams. He knows the delay tactics, the recorded-statement traps, and the social-media surveillance the defense runs on families who are already in pain. He now uses that knowledge for the families the insurance industry used to pay him to fight. He is fluent in Spanish and conducts full consultations in Spanish without an interpreter — because every family in Ohio, regardless of the language they pray in, deserves a lawyer who speaks to them in the language they think in.
We take Ohio cases. We are a trial firm based in Houston, Texas, and we work with local counsel in Ohio and appear pro hac vice in the Northern District of Ohio where required. We do not claim an office in Youngstown, and we will not pretend to be something we are not. What we are is a firm that builds hazing and institutional-negligence cases at the federal level — and the child-injury guide we have published is a resource for any parent trying to understand what their family’s legal rights look like after the worst thing that has ever happened to them.
We work on contingency. That means we do not get paid unless we win your case. The consultation is free. The call is confidential. And the number is answered 24 hours a day, seven days a week, by live staff — not an answering service. Call 1-888-ATTY-911 — that is 1-888-288-9911 — and talk to someone who knows what your family is going through and knows what to do about it.
Hablamos Español. Lupe conducts full consultations in Spanish, and our staff is bilingual. Your family’s language is not a barrier to justice.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I sue a school for hazing in Ohio?
Yes. Ohio’s anti-hazing law — Collin’s Law — provides a civil cause of action against the participants in hazing, the organization that sponsored the activity, and any official who knew or should have known the hazing was occurring. In a school context, this means the school, the coaches, and the administrators can all be named as defendants. If the school receives federal funding — which Ursuline High School does through applicable programs — a Title IX claim for deliberate indifference to sexual assault is also available in federal court. The combination of state and federal claims is what makes these cases powerful: you are not limited to one forum or one theory of recovery.
What is Collin’s Law in Ohio?
Collin’s Law — Senate Bill 126 — is Ohio’s strengthened anti-hazing statute. It expanded the definition of hazing and increased penalties for failing to report it. Under the civil cause of action it provides, a person subjected to hazing may bring a civil action for injury or damages against the participants, the organization, and any official who knew or should have known of the hazing. The “should have known” standard is critical because it means the school cannot escape liability by arguing it was unaware — if the facts show it should have known, the law treats that as knowledge. Collin’s Law is named for a student who died as a result of hazing, and it represents Ohio’s legislative recognition that hazing is not a prank — it is a recognized, preventable harm with legal consequences.
How long do I have to file a hazing sexual assault lawsuit in Ohio?
Ohio’s general personal injury statute of limitations is two years from the date the cause of action accrues. For a minor, that deadline is typically tolled — meaning the clock does not start running until the child reaches the age of majority. This is a general principle, and the specific application depends on the facts of your case and the specific claims being pursued. Title IX claims in federal court borrow the state’s personal injury deadline. The most important thing to understand is not the exact date — it is that evidence disappears much faster than deadlines expire. The Snapchat evidence, the cell phone records, and the camp logs may be gone in weeks or months, long before the statute of limitations runs. The deadline is not the emergency. The evidence is the emergency.
Can the Catholic Diocese be held liable for what coaches did?
Yes, under several theories. The Diocese oversees the school and is responsible for the systems, policies, and personnel decisions that put coaches in positions of authority over children. Under Ohio law, charitable immunity for religious institutions is severely limited in cases involving the sexual abuse of minors — meaning the Diocese cannot shield itself behind the same immunity it might claim in other contexts. Vicarious liability for the actions of school employees, negligent oversight of the athletic program’s safety protocols, and direct liability for the Diocese’s own failure to ensure adequate training and supervision are all viable theories. The Diocese’s insurance tower — its commercial general liability and potentially excess and umbrella layers — is where the recovery comes from, and identifying those policies is a central task of discovery.
What if the school says they already investigated?
A school’s own investigation is not a shield against civil liability — and in many cases, it becomes evidence against the school. If the school claims it “conducted a timely investigation,” the investigation file is discoverable, and we will examine whether the investigation was genuinely timely, whether it interviewed the right people, whether it followed proper Title IX protocols, and whether its conclusions were supported by the evidence or were a foregone conclusion designed to protect the institution. The Diocese’s public statement — which claims a “timely investigation” and “immediate actions” — will be tested against the contemporaneous records. If the coach was told on day five and the investigation only began after the family threatened legal action, the school’s own characterization of its response becomes evidence of a cover-up, not a defense.
My child was assaulted and it was shared on Snapchat — is that a separate crime?
Yes. The creation and distribution of a recording of a minor being sexually assaulted is the production and dissemination of child pornography under federal law. This is not an exaggeration — it is the legal reality. Every person who recorded the assault, every person who shared it in the Snapchat group, and every person who saved or forwarded it committed a separate federal crime. The Snapchat evidence is therefore not just proof of the assault — it is proof of multiple independent criminal acts. In a civil case, the digital distribution is a separate basis for damages: the permanent stigma, the knowledge that the images exist on devices the family cannot control, and the psychological harm of knowing that the most vulnerable moment of a child’s life was treated as entertainment by the people who were supposed to be his teammates.
What if the coach said “boys being boys” — does that matter legally?
It matters enormously. If proven, those four words are simultaneously: (1) evidence of deliberate indifference under Title IX, because they show the school knew about the assault and responded with a dismissal rather than action; (2) evidence of a mandated-reporter violation under Ohio Revised Code § 2151.421, because a coach told about sexual assault of a minor must report it immediately, not minimize it; (3) evidence of conscious disregard for the victim’s safety, which supports punitive damages; and (4) a deposition-lockable fact that, once the coach admits to saying it under oath, becomes the narrative anchor of the entire case. “Boys being boys” is not a defense. In a courtroom, it is an admission against interest.
We are being retaliated against for filing — what can we do?
Retaliation against a family for filing a federal civil-rights lawsuit is itself evidence, and it is powerful evidence. It demonstrates a predatory culture — one in which the community around the accused closes ranks to punish the victim for speaking out. In a federal case, we can seek protective orders and preliminary injunctions to stop the retaliation. Every intimidating communication — from a parent, from a player, from anyone — should be screenshot, saved, and forwarded to counsel immediately. Do not respond to any of it. Each message is a piece of evidence that the culture that allowed the assault to happen is the same culture that is now trying to silence your family. That pattern is a separate damages item, and it is a predictor of what a jury will see when they evaluate the institution’s character.
Can the parents of the kids who did this be held responsible?
Potentially, yes. Under Ohio law, parents may face statutory liability for the intentional torts of their minor children, and a negligent-supervision claim may be available if the parents knew or should have known their children were capable of this conduct. The 200-page complaint names eleven players and their parents, which signals that the plaintiffs’ counsel intends to pursue this theory. The practical reality is that the individual families’ insurance and assets may be limited compared to the Diocese’s coverage tower, but naming them serves multiple purposes: it ensures every wrongdoer is accountable, it prevents the institutional defendants from shifting all blame to students who lack resources, and it creates pressure that can drive a global resolution.
How much is a school hazing sexual assault case worth?
No honest lawyer can give you a number before reviewing the evidence, but the framework for valuation in a case involving a minor, sexual assault, digital distribution of child pornography, institutional deliberate indifference, and ongoing retaliation is substantial. Economic damages include specialized psychological and psychiatric care, the cost of a school transfer, and the long-term impact on educational and career trajectory. Non-economic damages include profound emotional distress, loss of enjoyment of life, permanent digital stigma, and the betrayal by adults who were supposed to protect the child. Punitive damages are available when the institution’s conduct demonstrates conscious disregard for safety. Cases with this profile — sexual assault of a minor in an institutional setting, with digital evidence and deliberate indifference after actual notice — fall into a range that starts in the millions and, in the most severe cases with the strongest evidence, can reach eight figures. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
The Call
Your son went to football camp. He trusted the adults who took him there. He trusted the teammates he shared a room with. He trusted the coach he told — or his mother told — about what was being done to him. Every one of those trusts was broken. The law does not fix what was broken. Nothing fixes what was broken. But the law does something else: it makes the people and the institutions who broke that trust answer for it — in money, in public record, and in the knowledge that a jury of their peers heard what they did and held them accountable.
The call is free. The consultation is confidential. We do not get paid unless we win your case. And the number is 1-888-ATTY-911 — answered 24 hours a day, seven days a week, by live staff who know what your family is going through. The preservation letter that freezes the Snapchat evidence before it disappears can go out the day you call. The question is whether you call today — while the evidence still exists — or whether you wait and let the clock and the app and the people who did this to your child win the race you did not know you were running. Call. Today.