Two sexual abuse lawsuits against the San Francisco Unified School District have been settled, according to the San Jose law firm that represented the plaintiffs. The SFUSD board of trustees approved the settlement amount of $4.5 million after the SFUSD insurance carriers and the plaintiffs agreed to the settlement amount.
The plaintiffs sued SFUSD in 2022 for failing to supervise then George Washington High School athletic director Lawrence Young-Yet Chan. Chan allegedly sexually abused two students and was allowed to quietly resign from his position.
According to one of the plaintiffs’ attorney, “the majority of the sexual abuse took place on the George Washington campus during school hours – in Chan’s locked office, in a locker room and a stairwell, and in the student government classroom. He was totally unsupervised.”
The two survivors were named as Jane Doe 1 and Jane 2 in the lawsuits. Chan allegedly sexually abused Jane Doe 1 from 2012 to 2016; the abuse of Jane Doe allegedly occurred between 2012-2013.
According to Jane Doe 1’s lawsuit, it is alleged that she told San Francisco police about Chan’s sexual assaults in 2017 leading to his arrest. After he was released for a lack of evidence, the school district entered into a “secret agreement” with Chan that allowed him to quietly resign.
Despite the fact the two students were allegedly sexually abused more than a decade ago and that Chan was never convicted, the evidence was compelling enough for the District to agree to the settlement, according to the firm.
“Had this case gone to trial, we were confident that a jury would likely return a verdict greater than the settlement amount,” the attorney said. “But in agreeing to the settlement, the two women were spared having to retell their stories and can now move forward and start to rebuild their lives.”
