GUILDERLAND — A lawsuit filed against a Guilderland High School history teacher has taken a new turn because of an April 30 decision by the Appellate Division’s Third Judicial Department.

The parents of Riley Rohauer filed the suit against the Guilderland Central School District and teacher Jon Kauffmann on their daughter’s behalf in 2022, claiming Kauffman had hit Riley in 2019 when she was 15.

The recent decision allows negligence to be added as a cause of action, meaning the school district would be liable as opposed to just Kauffmann for an intentional act.

“Now I’ve taken away every excuse not to talk to me in mediation,” the Rohauers’ lawyer, Peter Scagnelli, told The Enterprise this week.

The Times Union first reported on the Appellate decision earlier today.

By all accounts, the in-class incident occurred on Nov. 12, 2019 during Kauffmann’s European history class.

The Rohauers’ account, in court papers, states of Kauffmann, “He came up behind her and hit her with an open hand in the back of the head, with such a force, that it caused her to lunge forward and dislocate her eye glasses from her face.”

Court papers say that Riley had twice previously suffered concussions — in February 2018 and again in August 2019 — and the Rohauers claim that the strike exacerbated Riley’s concussive syndrome.

She then suffered “sensitivity to light, sensitivity to sound, migraine headaches, fear and anxiety,” court papers say.

The superintendent at the time, Marie Wiles, sent out an email to “GCSD Families,” referencing media reporting on the suit and saying, “The incident was reported to the district when it occurred. At the time, the district thoroughly investigated the allegation against the staff member and determined that the action did not violate the District’s Corporal Punishment policy and that certain aspects of the complaint were … unsubstantiated. The matter was fully and appropriately addressed at the time by the district.”

Kauffmann did not immediately respond to a May 5 email seeking comment and Superintendent Daniel Mayberry could not be immediately reached for comment.

Riley “is doing very well” Scagnelli told The Enterprise this week, and is slated to graduate from the Rochester Institute of Technology at the end of this semester.

Asked what she hoped to get from the suit, Scagnelli said, “From Riley’s point of view, she wants accountability. Right? OK, the way you do that in a civil case is to sue for money. We were about to go to mediation to see if we could resolve this, but they pulled out.”

Court history

New York has a three-tiered court system with the Appellate Division in the middle. 

The initial complaint, filed in the first tier, the Supreme Court, had causes of action against Kauffmann for battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress, and asserted negligent hiring, training and supervision and negligent infliction of emotional distress against the school district.

The school district sought to dismiss the complaint against it.

Scagnelli tried to amend the pleading at the Supreme Court level to include a cause of action in negligence but the Supreme Court denied the request.

Scagnelli told The Enterprise the reason for the amendment was that, while he was taking Kauffman’s deposition, “He said he was approaching Riley, tripped on a bag, and his hand collided with her head.”

The Enterprise noted that court papers filed in 2022 included a 2019 email Kauffmann had written to Riley’s mother, saying, “I was referring to a joke from the show NCIS, and meant no harm when I tapped the back of her head. I am devastated that she felt uncomfortable.”

Scagnelli responded to The Enterprise, “He said one thing in an email, he said another thing at the deposition.”

Scagnelli also said of Riley, “She hasn’t moved off the mark,” stating her rendition of what happened that day in class: “I was drawing on a piece of paper, I slipped onto the desk, I doodled on the desk. He came up from behind me … didn’t see his approach, wap on the head, glasses go down her face.”

Scagnelli states in court papers that the Guilderland High School principal, Michael Piscitelli, interviewed six students who were in the classroom when the incident occurred and that they “corroborated Riley’s version of events, (i.e. it was not an accidental slap, it was a deliberate act).”

The Appellate panel, in its April 3 decision, wrote: “In this instance, we find that Supreme Court abused its discretion in denying plaintiff’s motion to amend the complaint to add a negligence cause of action.”

The panel notes that Kauffman’s testimony at the deposition is what prompted the motion.

The decision goes on, “Additionally, Guilderland cannot allege surprise, since shortly after the incident was reported to school officials, it investigated the incident and learned that Kauffmann contended his contact with plaintiff’s head was accidental.”