A Texas student who was suspended from school and barred from attending graduation agreed to settle his lawsuit against Midland School District for $150,000 in April.
Casey Riggan was punished for having possession of a photo that a friend took of the school principal’s car parked in front of a female teacher’s house. School administrators accused Riggan of being disrespectful and fostering rumors and ordered him to apologize.
Riggan refused to apologize and instead sued the school district in federal court. He was suspended for three days, placed in an alternative school and barred from attending graduation.
The school district’s $150,000 settlement offer came after a judge denied the district’s motion for summary judgment in January, according to Riggan’s attorney, Brian Carney.
Carney said the settlement “adequately represented the damage that [the school district] had caused.”
The amount of the settlement “not only compensated Casey and allowed him to go on with his life,” Carney said, “it emphasized the severity of what they did and how bad it was”