The Prince family withdrew the complaint before it was heard by the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination and settled out of court with lawyers for the town’s insurers, Argonaut Insurance.
View full sizeSuperintendent of Schools Gus Sayer, left, and high school principal Dan Smith are two of the South Hadley officials who said they were not informed of the terms of a settlement in a suit filed by the family of the late Phoebe Smith with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination.SOUTH HADLEY – Half a year after the town settled a discrimination suit filed by the family of Phoebe Prince, no board has discussed or been advised of the amount of the settlement and, to the astonishment of some lawyers experienced in municipal law, no town official professes to even know the terms. More incredibly, most officials contacted for this story say they don’t know the same of the insurance company that covers South Hadley, and the few that do had to inquire about it.
Anne O’Brien and William Allan Jeremy Prince, Phoebe’s parents, filed the complaint with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination in July, six months after their daughter hanged herself in her South Hadley home. Investigators say Prince took her life after a period of intense harassment and bullying by some fellow students at South Hadley High School. Six teenagers charged in connection with their treatment of Prince resolved their cases this week. The Prince family maintains that school officials did not do enough to stop the bullying.
The complaint names Superintendent Gus Sayer, high school principal Dan Smith and vice principal William Evans individually, along with the South Hadley Public Schools. It alleges that Prince was subjected to hostile and abusive language and physical conduct, including epithets connected with her Irish nationality. Specifically, it cites incidents at school in the week leading up to her suicide, maintaining that school officials took insufficient action or no action to address them. As a result, the complaint says, Prince was subjected to a humiliating and sexually offensive environment that interfered with her education.
The Prince family withdrew the complaint before it was heard by the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination and settled out of court with lawyers for the town’s insurers, Argonaut Insurance. According to news reports, the parties agreed to an undisclosed settlement on Nov. 5 of 2010.
Phoebe PrinceSix months later, top school officials, members of the selectboard, the town clerk and the town administrator all say they have no idea how much the insurance company paid the Prince family and no records to that effect. In response to a Freedom of Information request, Town Counsel Edward J. Ryan said he does have such records but considers them protected by attorney/client privilege. Ryan notes that there were no public funds involved and that the agreement contains a confidentiality clause.
Although the settlement appears to have been paid by the insurance company and did not come out of town coffers, lawyers who represent other communities say it could cause a spike in insurance premiums that will affect taxpayers for years to come. Elaine Reall, Northampton’s City Solicitor, said insurance claims against a municipality are generally settled in one of two ways: Either the community gives up the right to control the process to the insurer or the policy holder retains the right to approve or decline a settlement. In the latter case, the insurance company can hold the city or town responsible for the difference between the settlement and what it believes a jury might reasonably have awarded.
Should a municipality involve itself in the process, the town manager, selectboard or some other body must approve the amount, Reall said. Because no one will release any information about the Prince settlement, it is not known which avenue it took. Even if Argonaut negotiated the settlement without input from South Hadley, however, Reall termed it “very, very odd” that no town official was even briefed no the matter.
“It’s inconceivable to me that nobody in town knows the amount,” she said.
In Northampton, Reall said, it has been Mayor Mary Clare Higgins’ practice to share the terms of such settlements with the City Council in executive session, even if the council has no say in the matter. One of the reasons for this is the inevitable spike in premiums.
“You can’t say it’s not public money,” Reall said. “Insurance policies are paid for with public money. There’s no free lunch.”
Alan Seewald, who served as town counsel for Amherst for 19 years, called the notion that no one in South Hadley is privy to the terms of the settlement “far-fetched.”
“Would I expect someone to know this information?” he asked. “Sure.”
Nonetheless, every town official contacted for this story has pleaded ignorance, including Sayer, who was a defendant in the claim.
“I don’t know the name of the insurance company, to be honest with you,” he said.
Frank DeToma, Marilyn Ishler, Bruce McCullagh and Robert Judge, four of the town’s five selectmen, all replied to e-mails on the subject saying they don’t know the amount of the settlement. John R. Hine, the fifth member, did not respond to the e-mail inquiry. Judge said he had been told that Argonaut is the town’s insurer. None of the others knew the name of the company, and DeToma said he assumed the School Department had a separate insurer.
Likewise, Town Administrator Paul Beecher said he is in the dark.
“I believe it’s Argonaut Insurance but we were never advised as to the amount,” Beecher wrote.
Ryan has confirmed that he never disclosed the terms of the settlement with anyone in town. Robert L. Leonard of Doherty, Wallace, Pillsbury and Murphy, the Springfield law firm that represented the Prince family, declined any comment on the settlement. Carol Lynch of Morris, Mahoney and Miller, which reportedly represented Argonaut, did not return repeated phone calls on the matter.