Posted on 06/18/2005 8:23:43 AM PDT by tuffydoodle
Girl, 15, Sues School Nurse Over Pregnancy Test Lawsuit Claims San Marcos Student's Privacy, Rights Violated
AUSTIN, Texas -- A 15-year-old San Marcos girl and her father have filed a federal lawsuit against her school nurse, who allegedly forced the girl to take a pregnancy test.
The lawsuit claims that nurse Dyanna Eastwood called the girl to her office and told her that a student at another school claimed he impregnated her. Eastwood insisted the girl take the test, according to the lawsuit.
The girl said she did not have sex with the boy and denied that she was pregnant. The girl's lawyer also said she was not pregnant. The suit, which was filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Austin, claims the girl's privacy and constitutional rights were violated during the January event.
The lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages, claims Eastwood violated the girl's Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure.
"I remember the incident," Eastwood said. "Is that how it went down? No, of course not."
She declined to comment further, saying she wanted to seek legal advice.
The lawsuit also names the San Marcos Consolidated Independent School District as a defendant. The district's general counsel, Juan Cruz, declined to comment, saying officials have not been served with the lawsuit.
"This whole thing is intrinsically wrong," said John Hindera, the family's Austin lawyer. "She's a 15-year-old girl that's suddenly being confronted with having sex and being pregnant."
Hindera said that Eastwood did not threaten any consequences if the girl declined to take the test, but that the girl felt she had no choice because the nurse is an authority figure.
When the girl's father asked Principal Chad Kelly about the pregnancy test, the father was handed a piece of paper citing a section of the Texas Family Code stating that a child may consent to medical treatment by a licensed physician if the child "is unmarried and pregnant and consents to hospital, medical or surgical treatment, other than abortion, related to the pregnancy."
Hindera said even if the girl agreed to take the test, that consent isn't valid under Texas law because of her age.
The parents some how found out she took the pg test at school. Overheard a phone conversation or read a posting on a kids message board or got a call from another parent who heard. Whatever it is, the story told by the daughter was fabricated to protect herself from her parents finding out about her having sex. She did have sex, asked the school nurse for help when she got worried about being pregnant, then she became brash and bulletproof when she found out she was not pregnant.
And this is the part I was saying we don't know about even though you are basing your opinion on it. I guess some assume that a pregnancy test was demanded but we don't know that either, it could have been offered and the girl assumed she had to take, but still, we don't know.
My opinion is that the nurse was out of line, but I don't think there should be a lawsuit coming out of it. You're assuming too much about my opinions.
Your opinion is duly noted and respected. I tried not to assume anything about anyone's opinions other than what they expressed. I was pointing out that we are all assuming things, except me of course. :-)
So this local school district is made up of inane leftist teachers/school administrators all on their own without the help of 'organization'? Doesn't speak well of our system of 'higher education' for teachers, does it!
Unbelievable, but schools are doing all kinds of things to kids without parents' permission. Such as promoting a gay lifestyle, teaching explicit sex to kindergarteners, etc. (Not to mention the Hate America agenda being taught as well.)
While that may be true, your whole post was complete conjecture. It's pretty amazing to me that some of you are perfectly willing to make up stuff to protect the nurse, but are very uncomfortable that the nurse is being taken to court along with the school district.
We'll see how this comes out in the end.
What were you asking for?
tell us why you think the girl would have consented, but would then go home an tell the folks. For the life of me, I can't think of one,
They only wanted to ensure that she exercised her consititutional right to kill the baby if she was pregnant. < /sarcasm >
So you think the parents found out that the girl had sneaked a prenancy test, and then tried to change it to the nurse forcing it on her. You must think these parents are as stupid as the school employees I've had to deal with.
I'm not buying your scenario. Neither would anyone else with a lick of sense.
Once again, you're exercising flights of fantasy to cover for a school nurse who got caught with her testing device out in the open.
This very scenario one of the exact reasons why school nurses should NEVER get involved in such matters. NEVER!
I'll be the first to ping you when the truth is discovered.
You did not understand why a hypothetical teenage girl would be embarrassed at being asked to take a pregnancy test and disbelieved when she said she didn't need it. I tried to explain why such a situation would be embarrassing. I am not necessarily talking about the girl in this story at all. Regardless of whether this was the case in this situation, the reaction of embarrassment and anger would be very normal in any other girl falsely accused of sleeping around.
Some young kids want 'bragging rights.'
I'm sure you will.
Let me tell you about my run-in with the brain-trusts at the local junior high.
My 13 year old daughter was caught smoking just off campus. As soon as the staff member caught her, she made a bee-line to her councelor's office. At the councelor's office she confessed to smoking, and asked for help to quit. Once she did this there was considered to be a confidentiality clause the school felt unable to breach. They never told us. One school counselor who didn't think that was right phoned me at home to let me know.
He also told me that the school principle, the school counselor, other school officials including my daughter's home room teacher were all aware that she was having sex with 19 and 20 year old men at a girl friend's house.
I confronted the jackasses at that school. I told them what I knew, told them I knew who was aware of it and what I thought about that.
These jackasses sat there with the straightest faces in the world and denied that they knew anything about any of it.
You can sit there defending school employees if you like. you may be right in the long run. In the long run it doesn't matter to me.
I don't trust a single school employee and NEVER will again.
In my case I wasn't dealing with teachers at an inner city school, short of funds or the like. I was dealing with a school in an upscale community, plenty of funding and supposedly a very respectable staff. I'd wager 99.99% of the parents of children at that school would deny their school staff could do anything like this.
Well, I'm here to tell you they did exactly that. I didn't take their asses to court. Perhaps I should have.
You'll just have to pardon me. If that nurse did what the family is claiming, I hope the family winds up with her home, vehicles, sail boats, dogs cats and bank accounts.
If the girl was 15 and the boy 13, who would go to jail?
You are correct that I did not understand that you were disassociating this hypothetical girl from the present discussion. I apologize but beg for understanding in that all other posts were about hypothetical situations also, whether the posters realized it or not. That is all I was pointing out, or at least trying to.
As far as understanding the feelings of your hypothetical girl, certainly I can. I can understand almost any hypothetical situation as long as I understand it. As the old TV show said, truth is often stranger than fiction, so fiction should be a snap.
I don't mean that explanation to make light of the sensitive and often volitle emotions of teenagers. I raised a bright, attractive, and highly achieving daughter through those competitive years and am still awaiting some kind of award for valor. It is easy to look back on all the emotional ups and downs during those years. Since she has turned into the same kind of adult as she was teenager I can look back on those years with some relief.
In fact, I now recall that in middle school one of her teachers stole some turqouise jewelry she had talked us into letting her wear to school that day. About a week later she saw the teacher wearing it a told her that was her jewelry and she wanted it back. The teacher went to the principal and reported it and the principal called my daughter into his office where dispite the grilling and admonitions about the seriousness of accusing a teacher of stealing, she stuck by her story. I was then called to come to the school to see the principal about my daughters outrageous claims. The principal, the teacher and I discussed the situation without my daughter. I was shown the jewelry and told them both that that was my daughter's jewelry. They asked couldn't it be jewelry exactly like my daughter's but still not be her's. Of course, I had to admit that was a possibility.
There was a long silence and they called my daughter into the room. They told her we had all agreed that it was not her jewelry and that she was mistaken. The principal asked her to apologize to the teacher. I interrupted and said that was not what we agreed to, that I agreed with my daughter that it was her jewelry but that we just could not prove it. I also said I thought the teacher owed the apology, not my daughter. We parted on that note.
That was long ago but it was a similar to this present girl's predicament in that my daughter was falsely accused by a teacher and a principal shielded thew teacher from blame as my daughter was shamed for being honest.
Rather than suing or fighting I gave up the jewelry and assured my daughter she had done the right thing and that I was proud of her.
After all these years that situation will come to mine and my daughter and I know that was her jewelry and that the teacher simply stole it, probably thinking such a young girl had no need for such fine jewelry. (I know, I am surmising what the teacher thought.)
I would be filing a law suit against him too.
Are you or anyone of your family members of the NEA ?
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