Do I have grounds to sue my school if they have been calling parents and telling them that i'm a drug dealer?

Question

Hi, I'm 16 years old and in high school. In late october of 2006 i was caught with 3 tablets of ecstasy in the school. i was arrested and went before a judge. i agreed to waive my right to a speedy trial and they delayed my trial until i turn 17, and if i stay out of trouble until then, the charges go away.

the reason i'm looking for advise is that a couple days ago i learned that the school had contacted several of my friends' parents and told them that i was selling ecstasy in the school. now i'm finding out that parents of people i don't even know have been contacted by the school. bear in mind that i have not been convicted of anything, and there is no proof that i was ever selling anything. Plus i'm a minor and my record is not supposed to be public info.

do i have grounds to sue the school? it seems like since i'm a minor, nothing i do should become public knowlege like this.

thanks for your help

Answer 1

You're not going to like my answer, but hear me out:

The State that you live in believed you were in possession of drugs. They may have, further, believed you were selling them as well, but decided they couldn't prove that beyond a reasonable doubt. Either way, they certainly felt they had enough evidence to charge you with the crime of possession, or else you would never have found yourself in court.

The school had a darn good reason to believe you had, in fact, possessed drugs, and, likely, sold or distributed them in some way. YOU WERE ARRESTED!

To prove a charge of "Slander", you would have to prove two things:

1) That what the school said was baseless, and that they knew or believed that the things they were saying about you were false.

2) That their reasons for spreading such information was done with malicious intent

We know you were arrested, and they know you were arrested, and why. And we know that they believe they are looking out for the safety of your known associates (your friends), as is their charge.

No attorney is going to take your case for free, or on contingency, for sure. And any attorney with ethics won't take your money or case, as they know it would be a waste of your money.

Regardless of what the legal system does with your case, your school has every right to take actions based on the arrest itself.

By the way, being a minor changes absolutely NOTHING in effect to slander laws. But being a student at that school DOES give more lieniency to the school than they might otherwise have. Not that they need much in the case of an arresst. They are only repeating what the State believes as well. Are you going to sue the State for false arrest? Why not? Because it WASN'T false arrest, was it.

You wanna win a slander case, sue the State first for false arrest. Win that, then you could sue for slander. But you won't, cause you know you'd lose the false arrest case. And even if you DID win the false arrest case, there isn't slander unless they spread it AFTER you win the false arrest case. The things they say based on the arrest before are clearly not baseless.

Answer 2

I strongly advise you to involve your own parents, and contact an attorney immediately. The school to my knowledge does not reserve any right to make public any information regarding a minor, as you are 16, you have 2 more years. You in this case are guilty until proven innocent in regard to the slander. As you have probably become suddenly aware of, there are VERY strict laws regarding controlled substances within the proximity of a school zone. As best as I can ascertain from reading the limited amount of information here, you were caught with the drug on your person and without the intent to distribute (3 hits should fall under the personal use parameter). It also sounds as if the local legal system was helping you out quit a bit with deferred trial and potential expongement from your record (charges go away). I say, YES, you have a legal right to sue the school, your parent's probably have a good interest in a lawsuit as well in that they are being defamed through the school's slander of you. As a minor, your actions do impact to some extent those of you parents. Hire an attorney, lay off the drugs (I'm sure this experience has helped in that department) and file a legitimate suit against the school district, do it quietly also, this is a major legal precedent and you need to have solid proof that this in fact took place. Hope this helps in some manner.

Answer 3

If what you say is true you may have a claim for slander. BUT, any claim would be very difficult to win, or even get past the initial pleading stage. You would have to know who said what to whom, and that what they said was a lie. Truth is a complete defense, so if the school just told other parents you were caught with ecstasy and they suspected you were selling it they told the truth and did not commit slander.
If you go to a public school you could allege that the school violated your constitution right to privacy. You would have to prove the school official was acting in an official role as a state actor, and that he was acting in bad faith. Otherwise your claim would be dismissed.
Regardless, lawsuits are not the answer to your problems. Stay out of trouble and work hard in school and people will forgive and forget an isolated mistake you made as a teenager.

Answer 4

My personal opinion, since you're asking, is that you sound as if you want to jump on a bandwagon to sue the school before you really know the facts.

By what you've written here, everything you have up to this point is pure heresay. I would enlist the assistance of a trusted adult such as parents, guardian, mentor, teacher, etc and go to the guidance counselor or school administrator with that trusted adult to get the facts. Ask the direct questions: is it true that you have told parents and/or other students about my past discipline and legal issues? If yes, go ahead and file a greivance. If not, try to get to the real root. Most of the times, other students -- not the school -- is the real source of the trouble. Additionally, one rogue teacher could have a gossippy mouth without the approval of the school. In that case, allow the school to run its correct course of action.

Yes, you made a mistake. No, it shouldn't be advertised to the world. However, you also have to realize that in reality, that is part of the consequences of your actions. Additionally, you now know how painful it is to be the target of someone quick to point fingers at others. Hopefully, you can learn a lesson and not be so quick to point your fingers at others without knowing the facts.

Answer 5

hmm its hard to tell because you are a minor and your criminal record is not open to the public, plus you havent been convicted yet so they are just speculating, however the school has the right to tell the students and or their parents if they feel that there is a danger to them. bob highly doubts you are a danger to other students, but that is what they going to say in court. so all in all if you go to court, your going to need to be able to prove that the school acted wrongfully and released your public information when you were not a threat to other students, your strongest point will be you havent been convicted of anything so they just slandered you. good luck in court

Answer 6

Yes. They are guilty of slander.

Additional: At this point they might be able to tell people what you are suspected of doing, but even that might be construed as an invasion of privacy.

Additional: Bret is wrong in that being arrested only makes you a suspect of a crime, but it doesn't make you guilty of it. Telling people that you are guilty of the crime unless and until you are proved guilty of it is spreading lies, thereby slandering you. They can claim that they were looking out for the kids at the school all they want as an excuse, but you are one of those kids, too. Therefore they should also be looking out for you. If you are only a suspect then they don't know if you were selling drugs or not, and telling people that you were amounts to tarnishing your good name. They are in the very least ignoring this simple fact.

Here's an example of what they are doing concerning something people can relate to:

A girl is seen entering a boy's bedroom, then coming out of it a few hours later. The boy tells someone beforehand that the girl was going to have sex with him. That someone sees the girl having entered and exited the boy's bedroom, then decides to tell people that she had sex with the boy AND that she sleeps around. One big problem is that someone doesn't know whether or not she had sex with the boy, they only suspect she has,and they certainly don't know that she sleeps around, that is just a conclusion they jumped to because they suspect her of having sex with the boy.

While she might have had sex with the boy and she might sleep around, until it is proved to be true then it is simply pretense, and spreading false pretense amounts to slandering someone, especially when it can hurt that person.

BTW They reason they wanted to delay your trial until you turned 17 was because at that age you will be subject to the laws of an adult.

Answer 7

Yhttp://www.dancingwithlawyers.com/pubs/sl-o1.shtml
Your right they don't!! This is called slander. Hope this web page helps

Answer 8

Were you selling the pills or just using them? If you were selling them, then you have no grounds. If you had bought them, or if you had found them, you could be able to sue the school OR get them in deep ****. Otherwise, youre screwed.

Answer 9

STOP selling and using drugs. No you don't get to sue anybody just because your embarrassed. Good, you need to be. Stop committing crimes and people will stop treating you like a criminal.

Answer 10

Only if you have lost some sort of monetary value because of these phone calls.

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