In order for you to credibly defend your position, you need to explain why it is ever---EVER---justifiable to go to court simply to extract an oral apology from somone. Allow me to submit: it NEVER is. You go to court to obtain compensation for damages suffered. But of course, Mrs. Young didn't need to go for THAT, because it had already been offered.
I actually agree with you that it is reasonable that the girls SHOULD have offered Mrs. Young an oral apology. I do not know why the lawyer recommended otherwise, though he may very well have had a genuinely sound reason. But even I grant that they SHOULD have done so, the fact that the DID NOT does not justify the lawsuit being filed, under ANY circumstances. It is simply not an acceptable response to such a refusal, period.
Again, I remind you: the judge basically accepted the offered settlement as sufficient. He agreed, then, that Mrs. Young wasted everyone's time.
Let me explain it to you.
Had the teenagers apoligized in the first place, there would have been NO reason to go to court. The Youngs didn't GO to court to get the apology, they went to court because they DIDN'T GET the apology.
Whatever you think doesn't matter actually. The Youngs won in court so the law was on their side. The reason they won probably had little to do with the apology one way or the other. The girls caused the anxiety attack and they were made to pay for listening to their poorly chosen lawyer.