Digennaro v. Malgrat, et. al.

Gaelan Jones and Dirk M. Smits (Islamorada, FL) (Governmental Law) with assistance from Hunter O’Conner, obtained a Dismissal Without Prejudice on behalf of all Monroe County School Board Defendants in the matter of Digennaro v. Malgrat, et. al. Bianca Digennaro sued the School Board, the City of Key West and several individual school officials and police officers, after Ms. Digennaro’s eight-year old son HMM was arrested at school following reports of him punching a teacher. Civil Rights Attorney Ben Crump, representing Ms. Digennaro and her son, filed a federal lawsuit in the Southern District of Florida and circulated body worn camera footage of the student’s arrest on social media and causing the story to go viral nationally. Plaintiff’s counsel argued that the City of Key West and the defendant police officers violated HMM’s constitutional rights by attempting to use handcuffs during his arrest, and that the School Board defendants had violated HMM’s rights by contacting law enforcement. Specifically, Plaintiff’s counsel argued that school officials should not involve law enforcement in student disciplinary matters unless they believe an imminent threat to school safety exists. The School Defendants moved to dismiss the lawsuit on grounds of qualified immunity, arguing that school officials are compelled to involve law enforcement in response to reports of certain crimes by Florida law, particularly in the aftermath of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting. In a seventeen page opinion, Judge K. Michael Moore cited arguments and case law from the School Defendants’ brief and ruled that the Defendants were entitled to qualified immunity.