Youngstown, Ohio School Hazing & Sexual Assault Lawsuit: What Families Need to Know About Title IX, Ohio Anti-Hazing Law, and Holding Schools Accountable
You are sitting at a kitchen table in Youngstown at two in the morning, and your child is asleep down the hall — or not sleeping, which is its own kind of telling — and you are trying to understand how the school you trusted with your son turned a football trip into the worst thing that has ever happened to your family. The phone call from the coach was bad enough. The silence from the administration was worse. Now you are reading about a federal lawsuit filed by families using the names “Doe” and “Roe” because what happened to their children is too devastating to attach their real names to, and you are wondering whether what happened to your child is the same thing, and whether anyone will ever be held responsible for it.
We are Attorney911. We handle school-liability cases involving hazing and sexual assault, and we are writing this page for you — the parent who needs to understand, in plain language, what the law actually says, what the school is actually doing behind the scenes, and what your options actually are. We are not the lawyers on the Ursuline case you may have read about. But we are currently lead counsel in an active hazing lawsuit — a $10 million case against a university fraternity in Harris County, Texas — and the law that governs that case and the law that governs yours comes from the same place: the recognition that when a school takes your child on a trip, it takes on a duty to bring that child home safe.
What follows is everything we know about how a case like yours is built, what the school’s lawyers are already doing to make it go away, and what you can do right now to protect your child’s rights before the evidence disappears.
What Happened at Ursuline High School: The Lawsuit in Plain Language
Families of student-athletes at Ursuline High School in Youngstown filed a federal lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio alleging that several players on the football team were victims of hazing and sexual assault during team trips in 2024 and 2025. The families sued under pseudonyms — “Doe” and “Roe” — to protect their children’s privacy. The lawsuit names as defendants the school itself, the Catholic Diocese of Youngstown, head coach Dan Reardon, assistant coaches Tim McGlynn and Christian Syrianoudis, several students, their parents, and school administrators.
The lawsuit has grown to include dozens of defendants and nearly twenty lawyers appeared on the most recent conference call. The families allege that the environment on the football team was dangerous, that older players were allowed to harass and assault younger ones, and that the coaches and administrators who were supposed to supervise these trips failed to protect the students.
The school and the Diocese deny the claims. Their defense rests on two arguments that we need you to understand, because both are designed to shrink what happened to your child into something the law does not cover:
First, they argue that the conduct does not meet Ohio’s legal definition of hazing because the students were already members of the team — not recruits trying to join. This is a contested legal question, and it is the kind of argument that sounds technical but is really designed to say: what happened was just kids being kids, not a statutory violation.
Second, they argue that the incidents were not based on gender but were personal conflicts. This matters because the families brought claims under Title IX, the federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools that receive federal funding. If the defense can convince a court that the conduct was not gender-based, the Title IX claims could be weakened.
In December 2025, U.S. District Judge Benita Pearson ordered the case into mediation before Magistrate Judge Carmen Henderson, with a deadline of April 27. She also struck 183 paragraphs from the families’ 290-page complaint, calling portions of it “extraneous” and noting that the complaint “does not speak; it shouts.” The stricken material included a 13-page footnote referencing national Catholic Church scandals and historical accounts of prior bullying at the school.
Here is what that ruling means and what it does not mean — because this distinction is everything.
The Court’s Ruling Explained: What the Judge Did and What It Means for the Families
When a federal judge strikes portions of a complaint, it is a ruling about the form of the document, not about whether the abuse happened. The federal rules of civil procedure require that a legal complaint be “short and plain” — meaning it should state the facts that support each legal claim clearly and concisely, without padding. Judge Pearson found that the families’ lawyers had included material that went beyond what the rules allow: historical grievances about the Catholic Diocese’s broader policies, accounts of misconduct from years before the current plaintiffs were part of the program, and what the judge called “scandalous” details about students who were not named as defendants.
The court did not say the abuse did not happen. The court did not say the school is not responsible. The court said: file a cleaner complaint that focuses on the specific harm to these specific children.
This is actually, from a strategic standpoint, not necessarily bad for the families. A narrowed complaint forces the case to focus on the core allegations — the specific incidents involving the Doe and Roe children during the 2024 and 2025 team trips — rather than allowing the defense to use historical distractions to bury those core allegations in a broader narrative. The third amended complaint will be surgically precise, and that precision can be an advantage at trial.
The mediation order is also not a defeat. Mediation is mandatory in many federal cases, and it runs on a parallel track with discovery — meaning evidence is still being gathered, depositions are still being scheduled, and documents are still being produced even while the parties attempt to settle. If the defendants are unwilling to offer a fair resolution, the case proceeds to trial. The April 27 deadline is a deadline to attempt mediation, not a deadline to resolve the case.
One more thing the court addressed: the families’ lawyers raised concerns about “blanket representation” — the fact that the school’s lawyers are representing multiple employees simultaneously. The families worry this creates conflicts of interest, because what is best for one coach may not be best for another. Judge Pearson told the families’ lawyers they must file a formal motion if they want the school’s counsel to explain why this arrangement is fair. This is a significant issue: when multiple defendants share a lawyer, that lawyer’s loyalty is divided, and divided loyeties can create settlement leverage for the plaintiffs.
Title IX and School Liability: What “Deliberate Indifference” Means in Hazing and Sexual Assault Cases
Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibits sex-based discrimination in any education program receiving federal financial assistance. If a school receives federal funding — and most private schools, including Catholic schools, do in some form — it is subject to Title IX’s requirements. The Supreme Court has established that a private damages action under Title IX requires proof of deliberate indifference to known harassment that is so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it effectively bars the victim’s access to education.
Let us break that down into what it actually means for your child’s case.
“Known” harassment. The school must have had actual knowledge of the harassment. This is the first battleground. The defense will argue the school did not know. The plaintiffs will prove it did — through prior complaints, parent emails, coach communications, disciplinary records, and witness testimony. The evidence the court struck from the complaint — historical accounts of prior bullying and hazing — is not admissible as pleaded, but it is still discoverable. Discovery is not limited to what is in the complaint. The pattern evidence the court removed from the pleading can still be obtained through interrogatories, document requests, and depositions of former students and staff.
“Severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive.” The harassment must be serious enough that a reasonable person would find it hostile or abusive, and it must have actually deprived the student of access to educational opportunities. Sexual assault during a school-sponsored football trip meets this standard. The defense’s argument that the conduct was “personal conflict” rather than gender-based harassment is designed to defeat this element — but courts have recognized that sexual assault is, by its nature, conduct “on the basis of sex” for Title IX purposes.
“Deliberate indifference.” This is the core. The school’s response must have been clearly unreasonable in light of the known circumstances. A school that had knowledge of a hazing culture, that sent students on trips without adequate supervision, that failed to implement protective protocols, and that did not respond when warning signs appeared — that school was deliberately indifferent. The defense will argue the school took reasonable steps. The proof is in the records: the trip itineraries, the supervision ratios, the coach communications, the prior complaint files, the school’s own safety policies.
“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.”
That is the text of Title IX. It is short. It is plain. And it is the foundation of every school-liability case involving sexual assault of a student by another student — because when a school knows its students are being sexually assaulted by teammates and fails to stop it, the school has subjected those students to discrimination on the basis of sex.
The defense in the Ursuline case is arguing that the conduct was not gender-based. This is a real legal argument, and it is one that a skilled Title IX lawyer must be prepared to counter. The counter is built from the specific facts: the nature of the assault, the power dynamic between older and younger players, the gendered context of a football team’s culture, and the school’s knowledge of the pattern. A sexual assault during a team trip is not a “personal conflict.” It is an act of sexual violence that, when a school knows about it and does nothing, becomes a Title IX violation.
Ohio’s Anti-Hazing Law: The Contested Definition and Why It Matters
Ohio has an anti-hazing statute that creates both criminal and civil liability pathways for hazing conduct. The central contested legal question in the Ursuline case is whether the statutory definition covers misconduct among existing team members — or whether it applies only to recruits seeking admission to a group.
The school and Diocese argue that because the students were already on the team, not trying to join it, the conduct falls outside the statute. The families argue that the conduct meets the statutory definition regardless of whether the victims were recruits or existing members.
This is a genuine legal question that the court may need to resolve. We are not going to tell you which way it will come out, because we do not know — and any lawyer who tells you they know is lying. What we can tell you is this: even if the Ohio hazing statute does not cover this specific conduct, the families have other claims that are not dependent on the hazing statute at all.
Battery and assault against student perpetrators. Direct tort claims against the student perpetrators for unwanted physical contact and sexual assault survive independently of the hazing statute. These claims are not subject to the same statutory definitional defenses. If a student sexually assaulted another student, that is battery — and the fact that they were both already on the football team does not change that.
Negligent supervision. Coaches and administrators owed a duty to adequately supervise student-athletes during school-sponsored football trips and in locker rooms. Failure to monitor, intervene, or implement protective protocols constitutes a breach of that duty. This is a common-law negligence claim, not a statutory hazing claim — and it does not depend on whether the conduct meets the statutory definition of hazing.
Negligent retention and training. If discovery reveals prior complaints, hazing incidents, or warning signs that the school or Diocese ignored, claims for retaining coaches despite knowledge of a dangerous culture and failing to train staff on hazing prevention and reporting protocols are viable. Again, these are common-law claims independent of the hazing statute.
Intentional or negligent infliction of emotional distress. The alleged sexual assault and hazing during team trips, if proven, would support these claims against perpetrators and potentially against supervisors who knowingly permitted a dangerous environment to persist.
Institutional liability. The Diocese as the overarching institutional authority may bear direct liability for failing to implement and enforce adequate child-protection policies, training, and oversight across its affiliated schools.
The hazing statute is one weapon. It is not the only weapon. A defense that wins the hazing-definition argument has not won the case — it has only closed one door, while the other claims walk through the rest.
Who Can Be Held Liable: The Defendant Structure in a School Hazing Case
A school hazing and sexual assault case is not one defendant. It is a web of defendants, each with a different role and a different source of accountability. Understanding this web is the difference between a case that reaches every responsible party and one that lets the institution off the hook.
The school itself. Ursuline High School, as the operating entity, had a direct duty to supervise and protect student-athletes during school-sponsored football trips. It received federal funding, triggering Title IX obligations. It employed the coaches with supervisory authority over team activities. Its liability is direct — not derivative of the coaches’ or students’ conduct, but based on its own duty to protect the children in its care.
The Catholic Diocese of Youngstown. The Diocese oversees Catholic education and institutions across Mahoning, Trumbull, Columbiana, and Stark Counties. It has broad supervisory authority over school policies, personnel decisions, and student safety protocols. Its potential liability runs through its oversight role — if it failed to implement, enforce, or monitor adequate child-protection policies across its schools, it bears direct institutional responsibility. The Diocese is also the deeper pocket in this case, with institutional assets and insurance coverage that may exceed the school’s individual resources.
The coaches. Head coach Dan Reardon and assistant coaches Tim McGlynn and Christian Syrianoudis had direct supervisory authority over the football program and team activities. They were present during team activities and trips. They had a duty to monitor and intervene against student-on-student misconduct. If they had knowledge of a hazing culture — or if they should have had knowledge — and failed to act, they are individually liable for negligent supervision. If they actively participated in or facilitated the culture, the exposure escalates.
Student perpetrators. The students who committed the alleged assault are direct tortfeasors — liable for battery, sexual assault, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. These claims survive independently of the institutional and Title IX claims.
Parents of student perpetrators. Ohio has a parental responsibility statute that may impose liability on parents for willful or malicious acts of their minor children, subject to statutory per-incident limits. Whether this applies, and to what extent, depends on the specific facts and the current state of the statute — but it is a claim that should be evaluated.
School administrators. Institutional decision-makers responsible for student safety policies, trip supervision protocols, and response to prior complaints or warning signs. Their individual liability depends on their knowledge and their role in the failure to protect.
The “blanket representation” issue the families raised is important here. When the school’s lawyer represents the school, the coaches, and the administrators simultaneously, the lawyer’s loyalty is divided. What is best for the school may not be best for an individual coach. What is best for one coach may not be best for another. A formal motion to compel the school’s counsel to explain this arrangement can expose those conflicts — and divided loyalties among defendants create settlement leverage, because a defendant whose lawyer is also protecting someone else may decide they need their own counsel and their own deal.
The Evidence Clock: What Records Exist, Who Holds Them, and How Fast They Disappear
This is the section that decides whether your case can be proven. Every record below exists right now. Every record below is on a clock. Some of these clocks are measured in days.
Student communications — text messages, group chats, social media posts. These are direct evidence of hazing culture, perpetrator admissions, witness accounts, and coordination of misconduct. They also establish the timeline and who knew what and when. Students can delete messages immediately. Social media platforms have varying retention policies ranging from days to months. This is the fastest-dying evidence in the entire case. A preservation letter demanding that the school, the students, and their parents preserve all electronic communications must go out immediately — not next month, not after the case is filed, now.
Football team trip records, itineraries, and travel logs for 2024 and 2025. These establish who was present, where incidents occurred, supervision ratios, and whether coaches were present during the relevant timeframes. School records have defined retention schedules but can be altered or destroyed. Preservation letters to the school and Diocese are needed immediately.
Coach personnel files — prior complaints, evaluations, and disciplinary records. These are critical for negligent retention and training claims. They establish whether the school had notice of prior misconduct or hazing concerns involving the named coaches. Personnel records can be purged under retention policies. An immediate preservation demand is required.
School disciplinary records and prior complaint files regarding hazing, bullying, or sexual misconduct. These establish actual knowledge and deliberate indifference for Title IX claims. The court struck prior incidents from the complaint, but they remain discoverable and potentially admissible at trial. School records retention policies may permit destruction. A litigation hold must cover all historical complaint files.
Witness statements from current and former team members, students, and parents. These corroborate victim accounts, establish a pattern of conduct, and document the institutional response — or lack thereof. Students transfer, graduate, or become reluctant witnesses. Memories degrade rapidly. Early depositions and sworn statements are essential. The longer you wait, the more witnesses drift away and the more memories blur.
School safety policies, training materials, and Title IX compliance documentation. These establish the standard of care the school set for itself and whether it was followed. Gaps in training or policy violations support negligence and deliberate indifference claims. Institutional documents are generally retained but may be revised — obtain all versions in effect during 2024 and 2025.
Video evidence from locker rooms, buses, hotels, or school facilities. If any exists, this is direct proof of conduct, supervision levels, and institutional response. Video overwrites within days to weeks depending on the system. Immediate inspection and preservation is required. This is the evidence that disappears fastest — a hotel’s security system may overwrite the footage of the hallway where the assault occurred within a week.
Medical and psychological treatment records of victims. These document the nature and extent of injuries, the causal connection to the alleged incidents, and the damages baseline for life-care planning. These are protected by privilege but must be preserved and organized for expert review.
The preservation letter is the single most important first step in a school hazing and sexual assault case. It goes to the school, the Diocese, every coach, every student perpetrator’s family, and every third party that holds relevant evidence — hotels, bus companies, and any facility where the trips occurred. It tells them, in writing, that they must preserve every record, every message, every video, every document, and that destroying any of it after receiving the letter is spoliation — which a court can punish with an adverse-inference instruction telling the jury to assume the destroyed evidence was as bad as the plaintiff says it was.
The Medicine of Sexual Assault Trauma in Student-Athletes
We need to talk about what happened to your child’s brain and body, because the defense is going to try to minimize it, and you need to be able to push back with the truth of what the medical literature actually says.
Sexual assault is the single most PTSD-producing event a human being can experience. In the largest epidemiological study ever conducted on trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder, rape carried the highest conditional probability of producing PTSD of any traumatic event measured — more likely to cause lasting psychological injury than combat, than a car wreck, than a natural disaster. When a school ignores a known danger and a student is assaulted, the lifelong harm that follows is not a surprise outcome. It is the most predictable outcome in trauma medicine.
PTSD is a formal medical diagnosis, not a label. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders — the reference manual every psychiatrist in the country uses — defines PTSD through eight separate criteria. A survivor must meet every one: the traumatic event itself, the intrusive symptoms (nightmares, flashbacks, distress at reminders), the avoidance (of thoughts, feelings, or reminders), the negative changes in cognition and mood (distorted self-blame, persistent negative beliefs, loss of interest, detachment), the alterations in arousal and reactivity (hypervigilance, exaggerated startle, concentration problems, sleep problems), the duration of more than one month, the functional impairment, and the exclusion of substance or medical causes. This is not a diagnosis a lawyer picks. It is a diagnosis a trained clinician makes after structured assessment.
“She didn’t fight back” is a symptom, not a defense. One of the cruelest myths about sexual assault is that a “real” victim fights back. The science says the opposite: most survivors freeze. It is an automatic survival reflex — the body’s brakes slam on, the muscles lock, the voice will not come. In clinical studies, the majority of rape victims experienced this involuntary paralysis, called tonic immobility. The ones who froze were not consenting. They were the ones the trauma hit hardest — they go on to suffer PTSD at far higher rates than those who did not freeze.
The injury is invisible, but it is not unprovable. The defense will point to a clean physical exam and say there is no injury. But the proof of PTSD lives in the paper trail: the hospital exam taken that first night, the first therapist’s notes, the first person the survivor told. These are contemporaneous records that pre-date any “litigation motive” accusation. They are the evidence that the injury is real, that it began the moment of the assault, and that it has continued every day since.
For student-athletes, the harm is compounded. A child who is assaulted by a teammate has been betrayed by two institutions at once: the team that was supposed to be a brotherhood, and the school that was supposed to protect them. The trauma is not just the assault itself — it is the loss of trust, the loss of the team, the loss of the identity of being an athlete, and often the loss of the social world that came with it. A child who leaves the team because of what happened has lost more than a sport. They have lost a community.
The life-care plan for a child who has been sexually assaulted during a school activity must account for years — potentially decades — of trauma-informed therapy, psychiatric care, possible medication management, and the academic disruption that follows when a child can no longer function in the school environment where the assault occurred. A child who needs to transfer to a different school has suffered an economic loss (the cost of alternative education) and a psychological loss (the disruption of their academic and social trajectory) that are both directly attributable to the school’s failure to protect them.
What a Case Like This Is Worth: Damages and Case Value
We are going to be honest with you about the money, because honesty about value is the first thing a real lawyer owes a family in crisis.
The case value range for a school hazing and sexual assault case of this nature, based on the specific facts alleged in the Ursuline litigation and the governing Ohio law, runs from approximately $2,000,000 on the low end to $25,000,000 on the high end. That is a wide range, and it reflects genuine litigation uncertainty — not vagueness, but the reality that the outcome depends on facts that have not yet been established.
The low end accounts for the defense’s strongest arguments: the statutory hazing-definition challenge, the gender-based element challenge to the Title IX claims, and the court’s narrowing of the complaint limiting pattern-and-practice evidence at the pleading stage. If the defense wins those legal arguments and the case proceeds primarily on individual negligence claims against the coaches and student perpetrators, the value is lower.
The high end reflects full liability on sexual assault of multiple minor victims by peers during school-sponsored trips, with deliberate indifference by deep-pocket institutional defendants, Title IX federal claims, and punitive damages supported by evidence of prior notice and failure to act. If discovery establishes that the school and Diocese had prior knowledge of hazing or sexual misconduct and failed to take reasonable preventive action, the value escalates dramatically.
Ohio’s damage caps generally do not apply here. Ohio imposes statutory caps on non-economic damages in many tort actions, but these caps generally do not apply to intentional torts, sexual assault, or civil rights violations. This means the Title IX claims and the battery claims against student perpetrators may not be subject to the standard tort damage limitations. This is a critical point: the very claims that are hardest to prove (deliberate indifference, intentional assault) are the claims where the damages are uncapped.
Punitive damages are available in Ohio for acts demonstrating recklessness or deliberate indifference. If discovery establishes that the school or Diocese had prior knowledge of hazing or sexual misconduct and failed to take reasonable preventive action, punitive damages become a significant avenue. Ohio imposes procedural safeguards on punitive damages, including potential bifurcated proceedings, but the exposure is real and it changes the settlement calculus.
The pattern evidence the court struck from the complaint may still be discoverable and admissible at trial. Even though Judge Pearson removed the historical accounts from the pleading, discovery is not limited to what is in the complaint. The pattern evidence — prior complaints, prior hazing incidents, prior warning signs — can be obtained through interrogatories, document requests, and depositions of former students and staff. If it establishes notice and deliberate indifference, it supports both liability and punitive damages.
Title IX claims may carry attorney’s fee-shifting provisions that enhance the overall recovery calculus. This means the defendants may be responsible for the plaintiffs’ attorney’s fees on top of the damages — which changes the economics of the case for the defense and can drive settlement.
The forensic economics of this case must account for the minor victims’ entire projected lifespan for future care costs. A child who is 15 when the assault occurs and who needs ongoing trauma therapy for the next 60 years has a future-care cost that runs into the hundreds of thousands of dollars — before any calculation of lost earning capacity, academic disruption, or pain and suffering.
The $2 million to $25 million range is not a prediction. It is the terrain. Where your case falls within that range depends on facts that discovery will establish — and on the quality of the legal team that develops those facts.
The Institutional Playbook: What the School’s Lawyers Are Already Doing
We know what the other side is doing right now, because our own Lupe Peña spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm — the rooms where claims like yours are priced, where adjusters and their software decide how to deny, delay, and devalue people exactly like your family. He sat in those rooms. He knows the playbook. Now he sits on your side of the table.
Here are the plays the school’s lawyers are running, and here is the counter to each one.
Play 1: “It doesn’t meet the statutory definition of hazing.” The defense argues that because the students were already team members, not recruits, the conduct falls outside Ohio’s anti-hazing statute. This is designed to make the case disappear on a technicality. The counter: the hazing statute is one weapon, not the only weapon. Battery, negligent supervision, negligent retention, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and Title IX deliberate indifference all survive independently of the hazing statute. A defense that wins the hazing-definition argument has not won the case — it has closed one door while the other claims walk through the rest.
Play 2: “It was personal conflict, not gender-based harassment.” The defense argues the conduct was not “on the basis of sex” and therefore does not trigger Title IX. This is designed to strip the federal cause of action and keep the case in state court under ordinary negligence. The counter: sexual assault is, by its nature, conduct “on the basis of sex.” The gendered context of a football team’s culture, the power dynamic between older and younger players, and the specific nature of the assault all support the Title IX element. A Title IX compliance expert can testify to the deliberate indifference standard in school settings and explain why the school’s response — or lack of response — was clearly unreasonable.
Play 3: “The complaint is too long and too inflammatory.” The defense uses the pleading’s length and tone to argue the case is more rhetoric than fact. Judge Pearson agreed in part, striking 183 paragraphs. The counter: a narrowed complaint is actually a stronger complaint. The third amended complaint will be surgically precise — focusing on the specific Doe and Roe incidents, the specific trips, the specific failures of supervision. A focused complaint is harder to dismiss and easier for a jury to follow.
Play 4: “Blanket representation — no conflict here.” The school’s lawyer represents the school, the coaches, and the administrators simultaneously. The defense will argue this is efficient and conflict-free. The counter: file a formal motion to compel the school’s counsel to explain the arrangement. When multiple defendants share a lawyer, that lawyer’s loyalty is divided. What is best for the school may not be best for an individual coach. Divided loyalties create settlement leverage — a defendant whose lawyer is also protecting someone else may decide they need their own counsel and their own deal.
Play 5: Delay. The defense will use every procedural tool to slow the case — motions to dismiss, motions for more definite statement, discovery disputes, motions for protective order. The goal is to run the clock, to let evidence disappear, to exhaust the families emotionally and financially. The counter: aggressive, early discovery. Preserve evidence immediately. Take depositions while memories are fresh. File the preservation letter the day you call a lawyer, not the day the case is filed.
Play 6: The quiet settlement offer. At some point, the defense will make a settlement offer that sounds like a lot of money but is actually a fraction of what the case is worth. It will come with a release that says you can never sue again, and it will come before the full extent of your child’s trauma is known. The counter: never accept a settlement before the life-care plan is built, before the psychological evaluation is complete, and before the full scope of the institutional failure is documented. A quick check that arrives before the medical results is not a settlement. It is a trap.
The Proof Story: How a School Hazing Case Is Actually Built
Here is how a case like this is actually won — not in the headlines, but in the records room and the deposition suite.
Week one: the preservation letter goes out. It goes to the school, the Diocese, every coach, every student perpetrator’s family, and every third party that holds relevant evidence. It demands preservation of all electronic communications, all trip records, all personnel files, all disciplinary records, all safety policies, all video evidence, and all medical and psychological treatment records. It tells them, in writing, that destroying any of it after receiving the letter is spoliation.
Weeks two through four: the records demands begin. Document requests, interrogatories, and requests for admission go to every defendant. The school is asked to produce every complaint, every email, every incident report, every policy, every training material, and every record related to hazing, bullying, or sexual misconduct going back years. The coaches are asked to produce their personnel files, their communications, and their schedules for the relevant trips. The Diocese is asked to produce its child-safety policies, its training records, and its oversight documentation.
Months two through six: the depositions. The coaches are deposed on their knowledge of prior incidents and their response. The school officials are deposed on their knowledge of the team culture and their implementation of safety protocols. The Diocese officials are deposed on their oversight of school safety policies. Former students and staff are deposed on the pattern of conduct they witnessed. Every deposition is under oath, every answer is recorded, and every admission is locked in.
The experts are retained. A child and adolescent psychiatrist specializing in sexual assault trauma evaluates the victims and documents the psychological injury. A Title IX compliance expert opines on the deliberate indifference standard in school settings and the gaps between the school’s policies and its practice. A forensic psychologist opines on the institutional culture and the impact of peer sexual assault on minor victims. A life-care planner builds the cost stream of future treatment. A forensic economist reduces it to present value.
The number is built. It is not a guess. It is not a demand pulled from the air. It is the sum of past and future medical and therapeutic costs, the cost of transferring to alternative educational environments, the potential loss of educational opportunity and earning capacity, the non-economic damages for pain and suffering and emotional distress and loss of enjoyment of life, and — if the facts support it — punitive damages designed to punish the institution for knowing about a danger and choosing not to act.
The mediation is prepared. A comprehensive mediation demand package is assembled with the full damages presentation. But the case is not undervalued — because the severity of the allegations and the deep-pocket institutional defendants mean the defendants have more to lose from a trial than the plaintiffs do, and the demand reflects that.
The First 72 Hours: What to Do Right Now
If your child has been hazed or sexually assaulted during a school sports activity — whether at Ursuline, at another school in Youngstown, or anywhere in Ohio — here is what you do in the first 72 hours.
First: get your child to a medical professional. This is not about building a case. This is about your child’s health. A sexual assault forensic exam (often called a “rape kit”) should be performed as soon as possible — ideally within 72 hours, while physical evidence can still be collected. Even if your child says they do not want it, even if they say nothing happened, the exam documents what happened and creates a contemporaneous medical record that the defense cannot later challenge as fabricated. The exam is performed by a trained forensic nurse (a SANE — Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner) who knows how to collect evidence without re-traumatizing the patient.
Second: do not discuss the case publicly or on social media. The court in the Ursuline case discussed a possible order banning parties and lawyers from posting about the case on social media or blogs. Whether or not such an order is in place, anything you say publicly can be used by the defense — to prejudice a future jury, to minimize the harm, to paint your family as motivated by money rather than by your child’s well-being. The silence is hard. It is also protection.
Third: document everything. Write down what your child told you, in their words, as soon as they tell you. Note the date, the time, and the circumstances. Save every text message, every email, every communication from the school. Take photographs of any physical evidence. Do not destroy anything — even things that seem unimportant now may become critical later.
Fourth: contact a lawyer. Not next week. Not after the school finishes its “internal investigation.” Now. The preservation letter — the document that freezes the evidence before it disappears — can only go out if a lawyer sends it. The school’s risk-management office opened a file the same day the incident was reported. The school’s insurance carrier has been notified. The school’s lawyers are already building their defense. You need someone building your case at the same speed.
Fifth: do not sign anything. The school may ask you to sign a release, a settlement, an agreement not to sue, or a document accepting the school’s “internal findings.” Do not sign it. Do not let anyone — a coach, an administrator, a diocese representative — pressure you into signing anything without a lawyer reviewing it first. A release signed in the emotional aftermath of learning your child was assaulted is exactly the document the defense will later wave in court to say you gave up your rights.
Sixth: get your child into trauma-informed therapy. The earlier the intervention, the better the outcome. A child and adolescent psychiatrist or psychologist who specializes in sexual assault trauma can begin the assessment and treatment that will both help your child heal and create the contemporaneous medical record that documents the injury. The defense will try to argue the trauma was pre-existing or unrelated. The earlier the treatment record begins, the harder that argument is to make.
How Fees Work: We Don’t Get Paid Unless We Win Your Case
We work on contingency. That means we front every cost of the case — the filing fees, the expert witness fees, the deposition costs, the travel, the document production, the mediation expenses — and we are paid only if we recover money for your family. Our fee is 33.33% of the recovery if the case settles before trial, and 40% if the case goes to trial. If we do not win, you owe us nothing.
The consultation is free. The first call costs you nothing and commits you to nothing. You will talk to a real lawyer — not an answering service, not a screener, not a chatbot — and you will get an honest assessment of your case and your options. We are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, because the moment a family learns their child has been assaulted is not a business-hours event.
Call us at 1-888-ATTY-911 — that is 1-888-288-9911. Or reach us through our contact page. We handle school-liability cases involving hazing and sexual assault, and we know what the law requires, what the school is already doing, and what to do about it.
Who We Are: The People Behind This Page
Ralph Manginello has spent 27 years in courtrooms, including federal court. He is the managing partner of our firm and the lead counsel in an active hazing lawsuit — a $10 million case against a university fraternity that we are litigating right now. That case and yours come from the same place: the recognition that when an institution takes responsibility for young people, it must be held to that responsibility. Ralph was a journalist before he was a lawyer, which means he knows how to find the story the institution does not want told — and how to tell it to a jury in language that lands.
You can read more about Ralph on his attorney page.
Lupe Peña spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm — the rooms where adjusters and their software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue claims from people exactly like your family. He knows how the other side values a case, how they select their medical experts, how they use surveillance and social media monitoring, and how they engineer delay. Now he uses that knowledge for injured clients. Lupe is fluent in Spanish and conducts full consultations in Spanish without an interpreter.
You can read more about Lupe on his attorney page.
We are a Houston-based firm that takes school-liability, child-injury, and institutional-accountability cases in Ohio. We work with local counsel where required and are admitted to federal court where the case demands it. We have recovered more than $50 million for our clients across our practice, including a $5 million brain-injury settlement, a $3.8 million amputation settlement, and a $2.5 million truck-crash recovery. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
If your family is facing a situation like the one described on this page — whether at Ursuline, at another school in the Mahoning Valley, or anywhere in Ohio — we want you to know that the law is on your side, that the evidence is still there if you move fast enough, and that the school’s lawyers are not the only ones who know how this fight goes.
We also want you to know about our hazing lawsuit practice and the specific hazing case we are currently litigating — because the law that governs hazing in a university fraternity and the law that governs hazing on a high school football team comes from the same principles: institutions that take children into their care have a duty to protect them, and when they fail, the law gives families a way to hold them accountable.
If your child has been injured at school or during a school activity, our practice areas page describes the full range of cases we handle. And if you are a parent trying to understand your legal options after a child has been hurt, our parents’ guide to child injury lawsuits walks through the process in plain language.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I sue a private Catholic school for hazing and sexual assault?
Yes. A private school — whether religious or secular — owes a duty of care to the students it takes on school-sponsored trips and activities. If the school received federal funding, it is also subject to Title IX’s prohibition on sex-based discrimination. The Catholic Diocese of Youngstown, as the institutional authority over Ursuline High School, may bear direct liability for failing to implement and enforce adequate child-protection policies. The school’s religious affiliation does not exempt it from civil liability for the harm that occurred under its supervision.
What is Title IX and how does it apply to high school hazing?
Title IX is a federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in any education program receiving federal financial assistance. In the context of student-on-student sexual assault, a school can be held liable under Title IX if it had actual knowledge of severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive harassment that deprived the student of educational access, and if the school was deliberately indifferent — meaning its response was clearly unreasonable in light of the known circumstances. Sexual assault during a school-sponsored football trip, if the school knew about a pattern of hazing and failed to act, can meet this standard.
What is Ohio’s anti-hazing law and does it cover existing team members?
Ohio has an anti-hazing statute that creates both criminal and civil liability pathways for hazing conduct. The contested question in the Ursuline case is whether the statutory definition covers misconduct among existing team members or only recruits seeking admission. The school argues the students were already on the team, so the statute does not apply. The families argue the conduct meets the definition regardless. This is a genuine legal question that the court may need to resolve — but even if the defense wins this argument, the families have other claims (battery, negligent supervision, Title IX) that are not dependent on the hazing statute.
How long do I have to file a lawsuit for school hazing or sexual assault in Ohio?
Ohio’s statute of limitations for personal injury actions generally runs two years from the date of the injury. However, claims involving minors are tolled — meaning the clock does not run — until the victim reaches the age of majority, which is 18 in Ohio. This is critical for cases involving student-athletes who were minors at the time of the alleged incidents. A child who was assaulted at age 15 may have until age 20 to file. But the statute of limitations is not the only clock — the evidence-disappearance clock runs much faster. The preservation letter needs to go out within days, not years.
What is “deliberate indifference” under Title IX?
Deliberate indifference means the school’s response to known harassment was clearly unreasonable in light of the known circumstances. It does not mean the school had to prevent the harm — it means the school knew about a serious risk and did something (or nothing) that was clearly unreasonable in response. A school that had knowledge of a hazing culture, that sent students on trips without adequate supervision, that failed to implement protective protocols, and that did not respond when warning signs appeared was deliberately indifferent. The defense will argue the school took reasonable steps. The proof is in the records.
What if the school says it didn’t know about the hazing?
The school’s knowledge is the first battleground in a Title IX case. The school will argue it had no actual knowledge of the harassment or assault. The plaintiffs prove knowledge through prior complaints, parent emails, coach communications, disciplinary records, witness testimony, and the pattern of conduct that was visible to anyone paying attention. The evidence the court struck from the complaint — historical accounts of prior bullying and hazing — is not admissible as pleaded, but it is still discoverable through interrogatories, document requests, and depositions. A school that says “we didn’t know” while its own disciplinary files show a pattern of prior incidents is a school that has a knowledge problem it cannot talk its way out of.
Can the coaches be held personally liable?
Yes. Coaches who had supervisory authority over team activities and who failed to monitor, intervene, or protect student-athletes can be held individually liable for negligent supervision. If they had knowledge of a hazing culture — or if they should have had knowledge — and failed to act, their personal liability is separate from the school’s institutional liability. If they actively participated in or facilitated the culture, the exposure escalates to potential punitive damages. The school’s lawyer may represent the coaches simultaneously, but the “blanket representation” issue the families raised in the Ursuline case is designed to expose the conflicts that arise when one lawyer represents multiple defendants with potentially divergent interests.
What is the case worth for school hazing and sexual assault?
Based on the specific facts alleged in the Ursuline litigation and the governing Ohio law, the case value range runs from approximately $2,000,000 on the low end to $25,000,000 on the high end. The low end accounts for the defense’s strongest legal arguments. The high end reflects full liability on sexual assault of multiple minor victims during school-sponsored trips, with deliberate indifference by deep-pocket institutional defendants, Title IX federal claims, and punitive damages. Ohio’s non-economic damage caps generally do not apply to intentional torts, sexual assault, or civil rights violations — meaning the claims that are hardest to prove are the claims where the damages are uncapped. Where your case falls within that range depends on facts that discovery will establish.
What should I do if my child was hazed or assaulted during a school sports trip?
Get your child to a medical professional immediately — ideally for a sexual assault forensic exam within 72 hours. Do not discuss the case publicly or on social media. Document everything your child tells you, in their words, with dates and times. Save every communication from the school. Do not sign anything the school gives you without a lawyer reviewing it first. Contact a lawyer who handles school-liability and hazing cases — the preservation letter that freezes the evidence before it disappears can only go out if a lawyer sends it. Call us at 1-888-ATTY-911 for a free consultation.
Will my child’s name be made public in a lawsuit?
Not if the case is filed properly. The families in the Ursuline case filed using pseudonyms — “Doe” and “Roe” — to protect their children’s privacy. Courts routinely allow minor victims of sexual assault to proceed under pseudonyms in federal litigation. Your child’s identity can be protected throughout the proceedings, and the case can be resolved without their name ever appearing in the public record. This is a standard protection, not a special favor — but it requires a lawyer who knows how to request it and how to enforce it.
What if the school offers us a settlement?
Do not accept any settlement offer without a lawyer reviewing it. The school’s first offer will be a fraction of what the case is worth, and it will come with a release that says you can never sue again. It will arrive before the full extent of your child’s trauma is known, before the life-care plan is built, before the psychological evaluation is complete, and before the full scope of the institutional failure is documented. A quick check that arrives before the medical results is not a settlement. It is a trap designed to make the case go away cheaply before you understand what it is actually worth.
Closing: What This Comes Down To
Your child went on a football trip with a school you trusted. The school was supposed to supervise them, protect them, and bring them home safe. It did not. Now you are sitting at a kitchen table at two in the morning trying to understand what to do about it.
The law gives you a way to hold the school accountable. The evidence is still there if you move fast enough. The school’s lawyers are already building their defense — and they are counting on you not knowing your rights, not understanding the playbook, and not calling a lawyer until the evidence has disappeared.
Call us. The consultation is free. The call costs you nothing and commits you to nothing. We will tell you, honestly, whether you have a case and what it is worth. If we are not the right fit for your family, we will tell you that too.
1-888-ATTY-911. 1-888-288-9911. 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Free consultation. No fee unless we win your case.
Hablamos Español.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. This page is legal information, not legal advice. Contacting the firm is free and confidential.