photo by: Screenshot taken with permission of the Douglas County Court

Mark Gridley appears via video conference from the Douglas County Jail during a hearing on Feb. 19, 2025, in Douglas County District Court.

The Lawrence school district is claiming that it is not vicariously liable for the alleged sexual battery of a student in February by a speech pathologist at her elementary school, and is asking the Douglas County District Court to throw out that portion of a lawsuit.

The lawsuit was filed against the school district in March on behalf of a student who alleged that she was sexually abused by Mark Gridley, a former speech pathologist at Prairie Park Elementary School, and that the district knew Gridley had a “propensity for unwanted or abusive contact” with minors but failed to investigate prior allegations.

Gridley, who was hired by the district in 2021, is currently facing criminal charges of aggravated indecent liberties with a child and one count of kidnapping, both involving a child born in 2014. Lawrence police, however, have alleged that eight children, between the ages of 6 and 11, were victimized by Gridley, who is accused of having abused the children under the guise of a speech therapy “test” while they were blindfolded and their hands were tied, as the Journal-World has reported.

In the district’s response to the student’s lawsuit, attorney Gregory Goheen, asks the court to dismiss the petition for damages, arguing that the district, a government entity, would be vicariously liable under the law only if Gridley had been acting within the scope of his employment. Intentional criminal actions, however, are “not within the scope of (his) employment as a speech pathologist,” Goheen writes.

The test for determining whether a person is acting within the scope of his employment under the Kansas Tort Claims Act, Goheen writes, hinges on whether the act by the employee was done for his personal benefit or was in furtherance of the state’s business, whether there was express or implied authority to perform the act in question and whether the employee’s act was reasonably foreseeable by the state.

“Mr. Gridley’s actions were for none other than his own benefit,” Goheen writes, and cannot be thought of as in furtherance of the state’s business; nor was there any kind of authority permitting the acts; nor was the abuse a foreseeable result of employment.

“As a matter of law,” Goheen wrotes, “the claims related to childhood sexual abuse are not within the scope of employment under any scenario.”

In his response, filed Thursday night, Goheen does not specifically address the plaintiff’s claims that the district is liable for negligent hiring and retention, and negligent supervision.

The plaintiff, identified as Daughter Doe to protect her privacy, alleged in her initial filing that prior to Gridley’s hiring, “… the District knew, or had reason to know, Gridley engaged in acts of misconduct consistent with a dangerous propensity for unwanted or abusive contact with minor children.”

The filing, however, does not detail what the prior allegations of misconduct were or where they happened. The suit claims that school district administrators and employees had been notified of the conduct and that the district had been asked to investigate. The lawsuit does not specify who in the district had been notified but states that the district failed to investigate further.

Gridley, 61, was arrested Feb. 8 and is being held at the Douglas County Jail on a $1.5 million bond. His next court date is May 8, when Judge Amy Hanley will decide whether he is competent to stand trial.