[A] confidential settlement has been reached in a lawsuit brought against Norwich University by a former student, which claimed the school failed to protect her from another student who she said sexually assaulted her on campus.
Lauren Morrissey filed the lawsuit in federal court in Vermont in September 2017 against the Northfield university, claiming the school was negligent in not protecting her from the man who had been the subject of multiple sexual misconduct complaints before allegedly assaulted her.
A one-paragraph “stipulation of dismissal” of the case signed by attorneys for both Morrissey and the university was filed in court this week. The notice does not state the terms of the settlement, including any monetary amounts.
Jeff Herman, a Florida attorney who represents victims of campus rape around the country, said Wednesday he couldn’t comment on the settlement, other than to say it was “amicable.”
Herman added that there was no admission of any wrongdoing on the part of the university as part of the settlement. The attorney did say that his client decided to resolve the case and move forward with her life.
Karen McAndrew, a lawyer with the firm Dinse, Knapp and McAndrew of Burlington who represented Norwich, said Wednesday she couldn’t disclose the settlement terms.
“I can simply say that it is resolved to the mutual satisfaction of the parties,” McAndrew said.
Norwich University had no comment Wednesday on the resolution of the case.
According to the lawsuit, Morrissey alleges that while she was a student at the school, another student, Alexander Alvarez, sexually assaulted her in her dorm room in November 2016 when she was in the first semester of her first year at Norwich.
Morrissey reported the assault to campus officials. That led to an investigation and Alvarez’s eventual dismissal from the school, court records stated.
The lawsuit included several counts against Norwich, including negligence, premises liability, and discrimination under the federal law, Title IX that prohibits sex discrimination at federally funded educational institutions and programs.
Norwich, in a filing in response to the lawsuit, said it had dismissed Alvarez from the school, saying he was “was found responsible for violation of Norwich University’s Policy on Sexual Misconduct, Relationship Violence and Stalking.”
It was only after Morrissey reported her case, court records state, that she learned it was not the first time the university received reports about inappropriate behavior by the student accused of attacking her. She alleged that Norwich officials ignored three previous reports of sexual harassment, abuse and assault by the student.
While VTDigger does not generally identify sexual assault victims, Morrissey has said she was willing to speak out publicly. At a press conference after filing the lawsuit a year ago, she said the university tried to keep her from talking about the alleged assault while the case was under investigation.
She also said that her academic adviser and the school’s Title IX coordinator didn’t respond to or accommodate her requests to complete schoolwork remotely from her dorm room when she no longer felt safe walking on campus.
“I had to withdraw from the university because I really didn’t feel comfortable staying in a dorm room away from home,” Morrissey said at the press conference. “I’ve had to attend lots of therapy. I’ve moved out of my (parents’) house and I now live with my friend. I admitted myself into an inpatient facility because I didn’t really feel safe with myself.”
Morrissey did not immediately respond Wednesday to a request through her attorney for comment on the resolution of the case.
Contact information could not be found Wednesday for Alvarez, who is accused by Morrissey in the lawsuit of sexually assaulting her. He was named in the public complaint filed in court and in a summary of the case posted on Herman’s law firm’s website.
However, the lawsuit does not name Alvarez as a defendant. Only Norwich University is named.
A criminal investigation into the sexual assault allegation did take place, headed by the Barre City Police Department.
Tim Bombardier, Barre City’s police chief, could not be reached late Wednesday afternoon for comment. However, he said shortly after the lawsuit was filed in September 2017 that even though Norwich University is in Northfield, his detectives in the regional Special Investigations Unit took the case.
Washington County State’s Attorney Rory Thibault, reached late Wednesday afternoon, said his office reviewed the investigation and decided not to prosecute. He added that his office as a matter of policy does not comment on cases in which no county charges are filed.
Thibault provided a letter, in response to a public records request, that was sent to the Barre City Police Department in April explaining the reasoning behind the decision not to prosecute the case.
“After careful consideration, the State declines to file criminal charges in this matter,” Thibault wrote in the letter. “Ultimately, there is insufficient evidence available to sustain a conviction.”
He added that other factors influencing the decision including the “unavailability of at least one key witness” that would likely “inhibit the ability to effectively try” the case.
“Further, the complaining witness’ decision to hold a press conference prior to the attempted execution of a wire warrant may have foreclosed the possibility of securing an admission of wrongdoing by the subject,” the prosecutor wrote.
Norwich University, in its court filing in response to the lawsuit, said only two other women had complaints about the man before Morrissey’s report. And those complaints were not serious enough to signal to the school that the man might sexually assault her, the response stated.
According to that response, the school “had received reports of inappropriate comments or conduct by (the man) toward women, such as telling one recruit that she looked ‘hot,’ and touching the knee of another female recruit.”
Morrissey, speaking in September 2017, said she decided to bring the lawsuit in hopes of changing how reports of sexual misconduct are handled at the university.
“I wanted to bring light to it,” she said, “and I wanted to have other people see that this is what’s happening at Norwich and it’s happening more often than they think it does.”
