Two East Texas softball coaches and the Kilgore school district are facing charges, filed in civil court by the mother of a 16-year-old student, for invading her daughter’s right to privacy after they outed her daughter, according to Courthouse News.
Barbara Wyatt filed the suit on behalf of her daughter, S.W., last year, complaining that softball coaches Rhonda Fletcher and Cassandra Newell aggressively confronted her about an alleged love triangle with one of the coach’s (Newell’s) ex-girlfriends, Hillary Nutt.
S.W. never came out to her mother and the coaches took it upon themselves to bring the alleged relationship to light.
The complaint charges that S.W.’s right to privacy was shattered but the school district is backing its coaches’ by saying that they were “legally obligated to share this information with the parent."
The coaches claim that the only reason they confronted S.W. in March of 2009 was out of concern for S.W.’s age and less about her sexual orientation.
During testimony they also cited that Ms. Nutt was a bad influence on S.W. because she had previously talked about drinking and smoking marijuana. They also spoke up because Ms. Nutt was eighteen-years-old and S.W. was sixteen, making any physical relationship between them a potential crime. Lastly, they felt the rumors were “causing dissension on the softball team."
According to court documents, the district moved for summary judgment, but U.S. Magistrate Judge John Love refused, citing in a 23-page decision that there are "multiple unresolved questions of fact."
Love found that the coaches may have had some reason to divulge information that superseded the student's interest in keeping her sexual orientation private, but there is not enough to make any conclusion at this stage.
"Based on the record before the court, the court cannot conclude as a matter of law that Coaches Newell and Fletcher had a legitimate interest in revealing S.W.'s sexual orientation to her mother that outweighed S.W.'s privacy interest in keeping that information confidential," Love wrote.
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