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A judge tells two Palm Harbor University High seniors that they received due process when they were kicked out of school over a baseball trip's controversial incident.
By ROBERT FARLEY
© St. Petersburg Times, published May 2, 2001
CLEARWATER -- A circuit court judge ruled Tuesday afternoon that two seniors kicked out of Palm Harbor University High School will not be allowed to return to school.
The students, Brian Pafundi and Chris Pachik, filed a lawsuit to contest their 10-day suspension and reassignment to an alternative school for their part in a controversial incident on a baseball team trip to Fort Lauderdale.
The students' attorney, Sherwood "Flip" Coleman, argued in court Monday for a temporary injunction that would have allowed the students to return to school for the remainder of their senior year. Coleman argued the students were not afforded due process because the school did not provide written notice of the charges and evidence against the students before deciding to suspend them.
In a nine-page order denying the request for an injunction, Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge Crockett Farnell ruled that the evidence presented showed the students received procedural due process.
Farnell stated that the students were given an opportunity to present their side of the story. Although written notice wasn't provided to the families of the students until after the recommendation was made to suspend them, it was provided before Principal Alec Liem made the punishment final, the judge noted.
On Monday, Liem testified that he talked to an exceptional education student who said he was "physically and verbally" coerced to rub his genitals on the chest of a student being held down on a hotel room bed by Pafundi and Pachik. Liem later noted that no other players in the room corroborated that the student had been coerced to do anything.
"While it is in the public interest to have a Code of Student Conduct and to see that its procedures for suspension are followed, it is also in the public interest that students be disciplined when they commit battery on a fellow student by holding him down without his consent," Farnell wrote.
Coleman said the decision was disappointing, "especially in a case where we felt we really made our point and made it clearly."
"Obviously, we expected and worked toward a different outcome," he said.
What may become of the case now is unclear.
"Until we have a more full amount of time to analyze how the judge reached this conclusion, we won't be able to adequately assess where we go from here," Coleman said.
But he said there are appeal options.
"Never say never," he said.
School district attorney John Bowen said district officials were pleased with the decision.
"We still regret the circumstances for these young men, but there are consequences to their misconduct," Bowen said.
Coleman argued Pafundi and Pachik were involved in innocent horseplay with a teammate, and that it was the student who jumped on top who took the incident to another level. Both also maintain the student who jumped on was not exposed when he was on top of the boy being held down, Coleman said.
Bowen said that isn't the point.
"It was egregious enough just holding him down and having a kid jump on his chest after having just exposed himself," Bowen said.
The case sends an important message, Bowen said.
"It is important for students to know when the school has done everything right, we will stand behind them (school officials)," Bowen said. "We won't simply give in because they (students) threaten a lawsuit."
- Staff writer Robert Farley can be reached at (727) 445-4185.