Court rules on lawsuit alleging assault and battery by Bibb principal

A lawsuit against a Bibb County principal and the school district has been dismissed.

Tracy Reeves filed the suit on behalf of a male student who attended Rutland Middle School over an incident that happened April 29, 2015.

Reeves accused Rutland Middle principal Richard Key of assault and battery. The lawsuit alleged that Key placed the boy’s arm in “an unnatural position behind his back for more than 20 minutes,” resulting in more than $3,900 in medical expenses.

On Aug. 16, the U.S. District Court granted a motion to dismiss from Key and the school district.

In the suit, Reeves claimed that the principal’s actions “were without justification or disciplinary purpose and undertaken with actual malice and the intent to inflict bodily harm” on the student.

According to court documents, Key intervened after finding the boy yelling in a hallway during school testing and restrained him when his behavior became more aggressive.

“It is clear Defendant Key was acting within his discretionary authority as principal and performing a legitimate job-related function when he disciplined a student who was disruptive during school testing,” the court ruled.

The school district isn’t liable in the incident due to lack of factual content provided by the plaintiff, according to the documents.

“I think it was the right result, and the court followed the law and found that there was no actual malice, so the lawsuit was dismissed,” said Randy Howard, chief legal counsel for the school district.

This story was originally published August 18, 2017 at 1:09 PM with the headline "Court rules on lawsuit alleging assault and battery by Bibb principal."