WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) _ Jurors in West Palm Beach have awarded a mentally challenged girl $1.7 million for the trauma suffered when she was raped on a school bus in 2007.
The jury deliberated a little more than two hours Wednesday.
But the Palm Beach Post (http://bit.ly/YcGE6I ) reports the girl’s attorneys must now persuade the Florida Legislature to lift a cap on jury awards.
That’s because under state law, government agencies in 2007 could only be forced to pay $100,000 for injuries resulting in their wrongdoing.
Jurors rejected the school district’s argument that the girl was too young and too mentally disabled to understand what a 15-year-old disabled student did to her.
After the incident, the school district decided that younger students could no longer ride on buses with older children.
Information from: The Palm Beach (Fla.) Post, http://www.pbpost.com