Legal Question in Appeals and Writs in California

You should re-post this question as being "education law." Your situation fits into a specialized area of the law.

Actually, this is a Constitutional Law issue that harkens back to Tinker v. Des Moins Unified School District. You have both a due process and a free speech issue here. If you want to fight this fight you will be following right on the heels of a ruling in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California last month in which the Beverly Hills Unified School District was found liable for suspending a girl for cyber bullying, and in that case the school at least had the sense to call the parents in and present the evidence on which they based the suspension. If you have been denied even the right to know the grounds for the suspension you have an even stronger case.

You need to bear in mind, however, that the monetary damages you might recover from the school district will be nominal, possibly in the realm of $1 token damages for a one day suspension. The individual employees are likely to have a qualified immunity, and therefore no liability if they did not act with malice or in some way intentionally discriminate against your daughter. So the meaningful relief may be limited to clearing your daughter's record. You have to balance that against the cost of initiating and proceeding with a Federal Court lawsuit. It should be a fairly straightforward case, with little discovery needed, and will probably be decided on cross-motions for summary judgment rather than going to trial. But that will still run well into five figures in fees and costs before the case is decided.

If you are serious about filing a lawsuit about this, however, I would be very interested in talking with you about the case. I have personal as well as professional experience with the harm that can be done by the trend toward "nannying" everything and everyone at the expense of our Constitutional rights. So I am particularly interested in this kind of issue.

Please be aware that you must within 180 days file a claim against the State of California and the school board. Contact me directly.