Doe v. Withers
Liability within the Educational System
EDED 6312
School Law
Dr. Jones
Dallas Baptist University
Spring 2012
Name of Case: Doe v. Withers
Civil Action Number: 92-C-92
Subject: Liability
The Facts: This civil court case takes place in a West Virginia school system located in Taylor County, when a general education high school history teacher failed to follow an IEP for Douglas Devart. During the case Devart and his parents Robert and Virginia ended up using aliases by the names of John Doe, Jane Doe and son D.D. Doe as a deterrent from the public so the family would not endure any additional embarrassment, slander, and/or liable regarding the son’s handicap. The defendants of this case were D.D.’s history teacher Michael Withers, Principal Greg Cartwright, Superintendent Wendell Teets and the Taylor County Board of Education. The following is a sequence of events that happened in chronological order that led up to the trial. Plaintiff D. D. was diagnosed as having a learning disability in the fourth grade while attending Anna Jarvis School in Taylor County. At that time he had been put on an Individual Educational Program (a.k.a. IEP) designed to accommodate his learning disability as required by Public Law 94-142 and implementing federal regulations, 34 C.F.R. 300.130 and implementing State Policy No. 2419, Section 1.3, 1.4 and 2.11, because of his learning disability D.D.’s educational program was adapted to provide oral testing by a learning disabilities teacher in a learning disabilities resource classroom. This accommodation was regularly provided at Anna Jarvis School and Grafton Middle School. When the Plaintiff, D. D., entered Grafton High School it was shown that he received low grades in most subjects during the first quarter of his freshman year concerned of their sons low performance D.D.’s parents scheduled meetings with all of his teachers to discuss their son’s IEP and to make sure his needs