The families who are suing claim the 11-year-old boy repeatedly attacked their children and his parent’s didn’t “do enough” to help prevent him from hurting others.
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The lawsuit describes his former next door neighbor’s 11-year-old autistic son as a “public nuisance”. “We are very disappointed by the non-factual and deeply manipulative falsehoods that have been spread”, they said.
“They have been slapped, hit, kicked”, another plaintiff, Bindu Pothen said.
The neighbors say they filed the lawsuit as a last resort and won’t back down because the parents who still own the home could move back at any time.
“But given that the family left the neighborhood a year ago, that no adverse events are alleged to have occurred for more than a year and a half, and that no actual injuries are even alleged as to the plaintiffs, this case is no longer about reasonable steps to ensure protection from a developmentally disabled child”.
In their lawsuit filed last summer, Santhanam and Pothen and the Flowerses said that despite repeated appeals by residents on Arlington Court, the parents of the boy with autism had not been able to control his menacing behavior toward others. They declined a request for comment, following Tuesday’s hearing. Moreover, they say, after they enrolled their son in special therapeutic classes and was given special medication, his behavior stopped.
All parties have agreed to go to mediation.
Tuesday, the judge ordered everybody to meet with a settlement judge next month. They sued and are trying to have the boy declared a public nuisance. “I really look forward to meeting with Judge Walsh and hope we can all work together for a positive outcome”. If they still can not resolve their issues, the case will proceed to trial in November.
A lawsuit has made a quiet Sunnyvale cul-de-sac into a legal battleground a lightning rod among advocates for people with autism.
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“What scared us in the Bay Area is that there are thousands of kids just like this one”, Jill Escher, president of the board of the Autism Society of the San Francisco Bay Area, was quoted as saying.
