The Pomona Unified School District must pay $35 million to a woman who sued the district and accused a Pomona High School coach of raping her in the 1990s, a jury ruled.
“Jane Doe 4” said in the lawsuit she entered the 10th grade at the school in 1995 and joined the track and field program. At a track trip to Las Vegas the following year, she said, she witnessed several male coaches and employees drinking, smoking marijuana, and giving alcohol to students.
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In 1997, during another track trip in Las Vegas, Doe said, she was assaulted by one of the coaches, Herman Hopson, who she said was drunk in a motel room. Hopson asked Doe to come into his room to talk to Doe after she had an argument with another coach. It was during that time he raped her, the suit says.
After reporting the assault, Doe was told by the school’s principal that it would be dealt with, but instead, Doe was incessantly bullied until she left the high school and moved to a different state, according to the suit, while the coach remained employed.
Although the lawsuit says two women alleged sexual assault against coaches at the school, the jury only returned a verdict Tuesday in Jane Doe 4’s case. Another woman, Jane Doe 3, settled and did not go to trial.
The suit, filed in 2022, was the result of Assembly Bill 218, a law passed in 2019 opening a three-year window allowing sexual assault survivors to file lawsuits. The window closed on Dec. 31, 2022.
No criminal charges were ever filed. Hopson could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
“Pomona High School had a prolific problem with childhood sexual abuse perpetrated by its adult, male coaching staff in the 1990s and early 2000s, and Jane Doe 4 is one of nine women who have come forward to report abuse. PHS administrators, coaches and staff repeatedly and inexplicably turned a blind eye to this abuse for decades, destroying the lives of many young women, including our client,” attorney Natalie Weatherford, who represented Jane Does 3 and 4, said in a statement on Tuesday.
“Today’s verdict is a huge victory, not only for Jane Doe 4, but for all the women who are currently waiting to fight their fight,” Weatherford said.
The Pomona Unified School District in its own statement accepted liability and said that the district would mandate more training and bolster its risk management team in response.
“PUSD’s students are safer because PUSD is implementing new measures and is more transparent and more committed to protecting its students than ever before,” the district said.
