Jury awards $20,000 to teen in lawsuit against religious reform school
By Matt Franck
of the Post-Dispatch
04/15/2004
Just when Jordan Blair had all but given up on his lawsuit against a Missouri religious teen reform school came a verdict that surprised even his own lawyer.
On Wednesday, a jury awarded Blair $20,000 on his claim that he had been shoved against a bathroom sink by an employee of Mountain Park Baptist Boarding Academy. The school is near Patterson, Mo., in Wayne County, in the southeast part of the state.
The verdict was announced in federal court in Cape Girardeau, Mo., just a day after a judge had struck down a key portion of Blair's lawsuit, ruling that Blair was not entitled to wages for time he spent working at the school. The judge had previously ruled against numerous other claims, including alleged false imprisonment and violations of civil rights.
All that remained was a single claim of battery against Bo Gerhardt, an employee of the school. And by the time the matter went to a jury Wednesday morning, Blair believed that the best that could be said of the trial was that he had stood up to the operators of the school.
"Obviously, I am ecstatic," Blair said shortly after the verdict was read.
Blair, of Alma, Ark., attended Mountain Park briefly in 2001 when his parents sent him there at age 16. Within weeks, he was transported to a sister school in Arcadia, Fla., from which he later escaped.
Blair told jurors Tuesday that he had been shoved in a bathroom on the first day he arrived at Mountain Park. But his version of events was later denied in testimony by Gerhardt and another employee.
Many on both sides of the case had assumed the jury would rule in favor of the school, given the fact that Blair's lawyer presented no other witnesses to the incident.
The school's lawyer, John Oliver, said he was disappointed by the verdict and would seek a new trial. Oliver believes that the jury was prejudiced by the actions of Blair's lawyer, Oscar Stilley.
The judge repeatedly chastised Stilley for attempting to introduce evidence dealing with parts of the lawsuit that had been tossed out. In the process, jurors heard Blair and another former student describe a barbed wire fence meant to keep students from escaping, and instances when students urinated on themselves because they were denied bathroom breaks.
Blair also told jurors that he was unable to report incidents of abuse to his parents because his letters home were screened by staff. During deliberations, the jury asked to see copies of those letters, Stilley said.
Mountain Park is one of several religious teen reform schools that have come to Missouri, in part, because of a lack of state regulations. The ministry left Mississippi in 1987 amid regulatory hassles with the state.
Stilley has filed another lawsuit in federal court on behalf of several former students of Mountain Park
