From Gaines v. Chicago Bd. of Ed., decided Friday by Magistrate Judge Sheila Finnegan (N.D. Ill.); note that the result might have been different in other federal circuits, which do recognize journalist's privileges of varying strength:
Plaintiffs Asia Gaines, for herself and as next friend of her minor child JC, filed suit against the Chicago Board of Education, Kristen A. Haynes, and Juanita Tyler to recover for physical and psychological injuries JC allegedly suffered in connection with a beating at his elementary school on September 20, 2018….
Plaintiffs allege that on September 20, 2018, Haynes (JC's homeroom teacher) invited Tyler (a distant relative of JC) to come to the school for the purpose of beating JC with belts in the boys bathroom. According to Plaintiffs, Haynes supplied the belts and physically forced JC to go to the bathroom with Tyler, who conducted the beating.
A few weeks after this incident, Tyler spontaneously answered questions from Savini on camera as she was walking down the street after leaving the courthouse following a hearing in the criminal matter related to the case. Also around this time, JC sat for an extended recorded interview with Savini in which he described what occurred during the incident. A small portion of the statements made by both Tyler and JC appeared in the publicly aired story, along with statements from others whom Savini also interviewed. (See https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2019/02/06/george-tilton-elementary-school-student-beaten-belt/; https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2019/02/07/lawsuit-filed-child-beating-case-cps-student/.) …
