GILROY – A new lawsuit filed against the Gilroy Unified School District alleges that school officials do not sufficiently protect students from physical assault on school campuses after a 16-year-old student was violently assaulted by another student at Christopher High School last year.
The lawsuit, which was filed May 2 by the law firm of Cerri, Boskovich & Allard in Santa Clara County, is seeking damages for minor plaintiff Jane Doe, who is not identified by name in the lawsuit due to her age. It alleges that the school district did not follow mandatory safety procedures or implement sufficient safety plans to keep students safe from physical assault on campus.
“This is now the third lawsuit I’ve had to file with something similar to this, and, unfortunately, these fights keep occurring,” said Mark Boskovich, attorney for the plaintiff. “The least we can expect from our schools is that kids are not being beat up on campus all the time, and unfortunately, it’s just become such a frequent thing that it’s forced us to take these more serious measures to get anything done.”
Boskovich added that the lawsuit is not “strictly about compensation” and aims to force the district to take fights on campus more seriously.
The Gilroy Unified School District does not comment on ongoing litigation and will respond to the legal complaint “appropriately and as required by law,” said Melanie Corona, the district’s public information officer. The district declined to comment on the alleged attack.
“The Gilroy Unified School District is committed to the safety of all students and staff as its first priority,” said Corona. “Per California Education Code, all schools in the Gilroy Unified School District have a board-approved comprehensive school safety plan that is reviewed, updated and approved annually. The Board of Education last reviewed and approved the comprehensive school safety plans in February 2025.”
The new filing follows a $100,000 settlement reached May 6 with Gilroy Unified School District in a similar case that alleged a student at Solorsano Middle School was concussed in an assault on campus after her parents warned the school about threats on two occasions, according to a press release from the law firm.
Boskovich said that the district did not commit to making any changes with that settlement but noted that it is difficult to get a real remedy beyond money in a civil lawsuit.
“What my client and myself are hoping for is that when you have insurers paying these kind of claims out, it’s going to put pressure on the school districts to say, ‘Hey, we’re not going to keep paying these claims, you’ve got to put these measures in place to make sure these aren’t happening,’ ” Boskovich said. “It puts a lot of pressure on the ones being sued to make changes so these things do not keep happening.”
A third lawsuit against the district that was filed on September 13, 2023 remains pending, the law firm said. That case alleges that the district did not protect a developmentally disabled student in ninth grade at Christopher High School from a classmate’s physical attack.
The three lawsuits are based on the California Education Code’s mandate that school officials must protect their students, the law firm said.
“Despite (Gilroy Unified School District’s) knowledge of the prevalence of violence and bullying on its campuses, it took no action to increase supervision of its students,” the lawsuit says.
On March 8, 2024, Jane Doe was allegedly attacked by fellow 10th grade student Heather Doe, who is not identified by name in the lawsuit because she is a minor. The lawsuit alleges that Heather Doe pulled Jane Doe’s hoodie over her head and knocked her to the ground, where she attacked her for three to four minutes. The attack was recorded by student bystanders, the lawsuit says.
The suit also lists Heather Doe as a defendant, according to court filings.
No school staff were present to intervene in the attack, the lawsuit alleges. It also maintains that the school did not adequately act on Heather Doe’s history of violence despite being aware. The lawsuit alleges that Heather Doe was previously removed from another school in Gilroy Unified School District due to violent actions.
Boskovich said that plaintiffs are hoping that the lawsuit will force the school to devote more resources to supervising students during breaks and taking physical attacks that do occur more seriously to create a “cultural change in these schools.”
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Jane Doe has not returned to school since the attack due to feeling unsafe on campus, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit further alleges that the district has been aware of the “significant risk” of students assaulting other students, referencing other alleged incidents such as a student being stabbed in a locker room at Christopher High School. It also points to a publicly-available Instagram page on which videos of students fighting on Gilroy school campuses are posted.
Mary Doe, Jane Doe’s mother, who is also not named in the lawsuit to maintain the minor student’s anonymity, had raised concerns about campus safety prior to the attack, the lawsuit says. The school’s principal told Mary Doe that the fights occurred because the school only had four or five campus supervisors and did not have the budget to hire more.
