 A teacher at a Chicago school did not act outrageously in screening part of the movie “Brokeback Mountain” — including gay sex scenes — to a class of seventh- and eighth-graders, a jury has found in rejecting an unusual emotional injury lawsuit.
Jessica Turner, a 12-year-old seventh-grader at the time, and her grandparents claimed she suffered “severe emotional distress” as a result of seeing the R-rated Oscar winner at Ashburn Community Elementary School. They sued the substitute teacher, Marnetta Buford, and the Chicago Board of Education in May 2007 for at least $500,000 in damages.
Buford showed the film in, of all things, a math class, allegedly after warning students that “what happens in Ms. Buford's class stays in Ms. Buford's class.” The school allows only G-rated movies to be shown to students and requires teachers to get the principal's permission before screening a film.
But after a three-day trial, On Point has learned, a Cook County Circuit Court jury last month cleared Buford and the school board of liability, finding the teacher's behavior did not meet the “outrageousness” standard of claims for intentional infliction of emotional distress.
According to trial testimony, Buford screened the first 44 minutes or so of the film during the final period of the school day on May 26, 2006. That segment includes the film's most explicit scene as the two cowboys played by Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal begin a homosexual relationship while herding sheep in the Wyoming wilderness.
But perhaps crucially, there was no evidence to support the plaintiffs' allegation that Buford “deliberately screened only the sexual segments of 'Brokeback Mountain.'”
“The sex scenes were not specially screened or specially highlighted,” Joseph D. Gergeni, an assistant general counsel for the school board, tells On Point. “They were shown in the context of the movie as a whole.”
The children in Buford's class viewed two scenes of Ennis Del Mar (Ledger) and Jack Twist (Gyllenhaal) making love in their tent. During the first 44 minutes of the film, there are also glimpses of male nudity along with some drinking and swearing.
“[S]ubjecting Jessica to view an 'R' rated movie with adult themes and strong homosexual content was extreme and outrageous,” Turner and her grandparents said in their complaint.
In Illinois, the legal test for intentional infliction of emotional distress “is met only if the distress inflicted is so severe that no reasonable person could be expected to endure it.” Buford did not testify in the trial, leaving her motives for showing “Brokeback Mountain” unclear.
“The evidence was that Ms. Buford did not seek permission [from the principal],” says Lisa Decker Hugé, co-counsel for the board. “No one knew she was going to show the movie.”
The jury wasn't swayed by the plaintiffs' argument that Turner and her classmates were particularly vulnerable at their age. The evidence of emotional trauma was also somewhat flimsy — Turner had an initial visit with a counselor but did not return for a therapy appointment.
“The counselor testified that she was not qualified to make a diagnosis,” Hugé says.
A judge dismissed Turner's other claims for negligent hiring and false imprisonment before the trial. Her lawyer asked the jury for only $40,000 in damages.
By Matthew Heller
On Point |
