From Spring v. Allegany-Limestone Central School Dist., decided Tuesday by Judge William Skretny (W.D.N.Y.):
Gregory Spring was the son of Plaintiffs Keri and Eugene Spring, and the brother of Plaintiff Julianne Spring. Defendant Diane Lowry was a teacher's aide at the Allegany-Limestone Central School District, where Gregory was a student. Lowry frequently worked in the same classroom as Gregory while he was in middle school but had no contact with him after he completed eighth grade.
Lowry testified that, when Gregory was in eighth grade, she saw him running down the hallways with a group of boys, pushing people over. She also testified that one day she asked the group of boys, including Gregory, not to crowd her and the physically-limited student with whom she was working and Gregory responded, "you need to shut the hell up and mind your own business." Lowry left discipline for this incident to the teacher in charge. She testified that, a few days later, Gregory apologized to her for that incident. Lowry also testified that she had seen Gregory bully a student called Z.C. until he cried but she did not provide a date or context for this incident.
School disciplinary records indicate that Gregory was disciplined on November 12, 2010, and January 19, 2011, for shoving other students in the hallway. What appears to be a complete record of eight disciplinary incidents in Gregory's record does not contain a record of Gregory either bullying another student or telling Lowry to shut up.
Gregory committed suicide on June 17, 2013. In the aftermath of his suicide, an anonymous poster wrote the following on the online message board of the funeral home: "Ha ha. He died. I hope he's in hell." A Channel 4 news article covered his suicide. The online comments section for this article contains multiple posts about his suicide and about his mother Keri's allegations that Gregory committed suicide because he had been bullied and that the school district had done nothing to protect him from bullying. {It is likely that this discussion occurred within several days of Gregory's funeral. In messages to a parent in the District, Lowry asked, "what parent would contact a news station the day after your son's funeral?" This suggests that the Channel 4 coverage occurred in the days after the funeral and this discussion ensued shortly after.}
Lowry engaged in this online conversation. In her first post, she wrote,
