By the time a federal jury delivered their verdict Wednesday evening, awarding Jomaury Champ’s family $750,000 in damages, the Chicago Public Schools student, who’s now 15, had long left the courtroom.
On the last day of a civil trial focused on the beating he’d endured as a fourth-grade Tilton Elementary School student, Champ had walked out early in closing arguments, as lawyers debated the extent of his psychological injuries and the Board of Education’s responsibility for the actions of his former homeroom teacher, Kristen Haynes.
Among the facts not in contention: After Champ, who has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder or ADHD, was repeatedly disruptive in her class, Haynes allowed her personal acquaintance, who was not affiliated with CPS, Juanita Tyler, into the West Garfield school at the start of a late September school day in 2018. Haynes brought Champ, then 9, to a bathroom with Tyler, and then left him alone with her there. Tyler, an estranged relative whom the boy did not know, proceeded to beat Champ repeatedly with two belts – which Haynes kept in her classroom.
Board of Education attorney Brian Kolp insisted that “physically hitting children has never been a part of the culture at CPS,” telling members of the jury it would not be just to hold the district liable.
Representing Tyler, who was criminally convicted of domestic battery for the incident in 2023, lawyer Andrew Rima asked members of the jury to “put your compassion aside,” asserting that the damages for which Champ’s mother sought compensation were an exaggeration, attempting to “pass off his lifelong struggles with ADHD to one day.”
That day was “pure psychological terror” for Champ, who was hospitalized twice following the incident and diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, which exacerbated his ADHD and for which symptoms remain with the now-sophomore CPS student to the present day, according a member of the family’s legal team, Al Hofeld, Jr., and a nurse who testified in the trial. “Teachers and schools should never use violence to discipline children…it’s not who we are (as a society),” Hofeld told the jury Wednesday.
“Offenses against children are particularly egregious,” said his co-counsel, Julia Rickert, who showed the jury a Facebook message in which Haynes discussed whom Champ might be “scared of” prior to the incident.
Hayne’s attorney Thomas O’Carroll implied that the former teacher didn’t know what Tyler would do and kept the belts in her classroom closet as “a deterrent”. He encouraged the jury to award damages of no more than $48,000, as equivalent to a community college scholarship which he said would incentivize Champ to work hard – a notion that Rickert called “offensive.”
By the end of the week-and–half long civil trial, the jury disagreed with the defendants’ lawyers, deeming the Board, Haynes and Tyler responsible for the infliction of emotional distress and conspiracy. CPS will also have to pay for Champ’s family’s attorneys’ fees, which have accrued since February 2019, as civil proceedings dragged on with no settlement offers made until trial, according to Hofeld, Jr.
“It’s been a long haul,” he told the Tribune, noting the litany of times he said Champ has had to recount his story in the interim years – amid various investigations, Tyler’s criminal conviction and administrative hearings on Hayne’s dismissal. “It’s been very difficult for the family to go through this for the past six years…We on the plaintiff’s side would like to have resolved this case much, much earlier,” he said.
CPS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Hofeld, Jr. said the family is “delighted” for the case to finally end. “It’s a positive outcome, and we feel like we achieved a significant measure of justice for the family today,” he said.
