New Jersey School District To Be Sued Following 12-Year-Old Girl’s Suicide

It’s a terrible thing when a 12-year-old feels like the only way out is to end her life, but is it the school’s fault? Mallory Grossman’s family seems to think so. It was last June when Mallory decided she had had enough, after months of dealing with relentless bullying from her peers, both online and in person.

Six weeks after her suicide, Mallory’s mom, Dianne Grossman, is blaming the New Jersey school her daughter attended.

“There was a pattern, a regular history pattern of the school district dismissing my concerns.”

Even though Diana and her husband, Seth, “followed school protocol” and made their way from the bottom of the chain to the principal, nothing was done. And even if there was an investigation and someone actually took the time to look into it, “they didn’t do enough.”

The family expressed their intentions of suing the Rockaway Township School District through their attorney, Bruce Nagel, who said he will be filing a notice of intent to sue them for negligence.

“For months she was told she was a loser, she had no friends, and finally she was told, ‘Why don’t you kill yourself?'”

Nagel elaborated on the reasoning for the lawsuit, stating that he hasn’t ruled out suing also the parents of the kids involved in the bullying.

“We want to open a Pandora’s box, we want to push against the hornet’s nest. We want to end this forever.”

While those specific lawsuits may result in an avalanche of lawsuits filed by other family members of kids who have lost their lives to suicide after being bullied, neither the family nor Nagel are concerned with that. The details of the excruciating pain her daughter had to endure has given Dianne the strength she needs to carry on, to make sure this never happens again to another child.

“In the beginning, it was just teasing, it was name-calling, it was exclusion was an important part. ‘You can’t sit here… you’re not welcome at this table.'”

She did not only complain at the school but also to the parents of the other children, who were quick to dismiss her concerns.

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Her last efforts to keep her daughter alive were mere hours before Mallory committed suicide. Dianne complained to the administrators at the school right before the unthinkable happened.

With her lawsuit, Dianne hopes to open the eyes of the school administrators.

“So maybe teachers and administrators will think twice before sweep things under the rug.”

So far, New Jersey has seen 11 lawsuits in bullying cases in the past eight years, something that speaks volumes of the bullying and cyber-bullying epidemic that the country has seen in recent years.

[Featured Image by Seth Wenig/AP Images]