In October 2009, a 15-year-old autistic and developmentally disabled female student was found in an Independence High School bathroom naked from the waist-down. An autistic male classmate was allegedly standing behind the girl with his hands on her hips and pressed up against her. Both students allegedly had the mental capacity of small children, with little speech skills. The girl’s father, acting as his daughter’s guardian ad litem, sued the Kern High School District, Principal William Sandoval, Assistant Principal Connie Grumling, Assistant Principal Kelli Hardin, Chris Herstam, Matt Hoyt and Special Education Director Julie Willis. Plaintiff’s counsel asserted that the female student was sexually assaulted and that district employees waited more than five hours, until after the regular school day had ended and the two students had attended an after-school program together, to notify the female student’s parents. Counsel contended that there were only four students in the classroom at the time of the incident, but the teacher and aide present had lost track of the male student and were only alerted to a problem when they heard the female student screaming from the bathroom. Plaintiff’s counsel further contended that rather than report the incident, the Kern High School District attempted to cover it up, presumably because both students were considered “non-verbal.” Thus, plaintiff’s counsel asserted that the defendants were negligent for failing to discharge their mandatory reporting duties under California’s Child Abuse and Neglect Mandatory Reporting Act. The individual defendants were ultimately dismissed from the case, and the matter proceeded to trial against the school district, which admitted liability by stipulation. An initial trial resulted in a mistrial in 2009. Although the school district stipulated to liability, during the retrial, it took the position that it was only liable if something had happened in the bathroom and that, in fact, nothing had happened., The female student’s father claimed that his 15-year-old daughter was sexually assaulted, causing her emotional distress. He claimed that as a result, his daughter will require ongoing counseling and speech therapy. As of the time of trial, the female student had received only limited treatment after the incident, in part because of the lack of available health care providers capable of treating a patient with the girl’s limited ability to communicate verbally. The defense’s expert pediatric psychologist opined that autistic children could be sexually abused without any harm because they could not recall what had occurred. He testified, “[The female student’s] disability prevents her from being able to see [the incident] as a sexual event and even if she did see it as a sexual event, it is no longer part of her recollection. So there’s no trauma associated with it. There’s no meaning associated with it. It doesn’t exist.” The defense’s developmental psychology expert opined that autistic children cannot be harmed by sexual assault because they cannot understand it. She opined that the female student was “not even sure that inappropriate sexual touching was inappropriate for her at the time.” In response, plaintiff’s counsel argued that the defense’s developmental psychology expert was an unlicensed expert masquerading as a psychologist and that the school district engaged this expert to secretly go to the female student’s school and observe her, over the parents’ objection.