During the 2004-05 school year, two plaintiff students at John H. Still K-8 School in the Meadowview area, including an 8-year-old second-grade girl and a 6-year-old girl, claimed that they were sexually molested by a physical education teacher, Abdol Hossein Mehrdadi, while in the school’s gym. The plaintiffs, through their respective guardians ad litem, sued Mehrdadi and his employer, the Sacramento Unified School District. They alleged that Mehrdadi’s actions constituted sexual assault and that the school district was negligent in its supervision of Mehrdadi. Mehrdadi denied molesting the girls when Sacramento police interviewed him in February 2008. He was never arrested and no charges were filed. Mehrdadi ultimately settled out of court prior to trial. The 8 year old claimed that she began to be molested when she was a second-grader in the 2004-05 school year and that it continued through 2006-07 school year. The 6 year old claimed that she was molested once in November 2007 and then reported the molestation to the police in May 2008. According to her testimony, and that of the girl’s guardian at trial, Mehrdadi had touched her inappropriately. Plaintiffs’ counsel contended that the district placed Mehrdadi on paid administrative leave in February 2008, but that the signs of sexual abuse of the girls were not picked up by the school district’s staff. Counsel argued that the Sacramento Unified School District failed to adequately train its school staff on how to detect and monitor child abuse, as the warning signs of Mehrdadi’s improper conduct with students, including a history of making young female students uncomfortable with his “touchy feely” ways, was or should have been obvious to the school’s employees. Plaintiffs’ counsel contended that Mehrdadi should have been identified for separating his young victims from the Physical Education class and disappearing for periods of time during class. Counsel also contended that the storage room should have been secured by either locking it or by performing random inspections of it, which would have made it a less available place to potentially molest children. Plaintiffs’ counsel further contended that although the district had a policy to teach its young students how to detect and report sexual abuse, it did nothing to implement the policy and if it had done so, the assaults could have been stopped once the “grooming process” had started. Counsel for the Sacramento Unified School District denied the rapes ever occurred, and argued that there was no admissible evidence of any prior complaints that Mehrdadi was “touchy feely” nor was there any prior complaints of Mehrdadi at all. Counsel contended that the school district had policies consistent with state laws, that it implemented those policies, and that the implementation of the policies exceeded state law mandates. Counsel also contended that the 6-year-old’s guardian did not come forward with her allegations until she was first contacted by relatives who had told her about the 8-year-old girl’s charges of molestation against the coach. The district’s counsel further contended that since her first contact with authorities, the 6-year-old girl changed her story dramatically. Mehrdadi’s counsel noted that no allegations were made against the coach until the stepfather of the 8-year-old girl was arrested and incarcerated for raping her. Counsel contended that after the girl’s stepfather was in jail, his family told the girls to blame it on Mehrdadi. Counsel further contended that after the family of the 8-year-old’s stepfather made the allegations about the coach, the police and the District Attorney made a determination that there was no credible evidence that Mehrdadi had done anything. In addition, Mehrdadi’s counsel contended that when the police interviewed the 6-year-old girl, she denied that Mehrdadi had done anything to her and that the 8-year-old girl told the police that her stepfather had molested her. However, the charges against the stepfather were ultimately dropped and he was released from jail., The 8-year-old girl, who was 15 years old at the time of trial, and the 6-year-old girl, who was 11 years old at the time of trial, each claimed that they were molested at the school. The plaintiffs’ psychiatric expert testified that both girls were emotionally injured, and will need ongoing therapy to help them develop normal sexual relationships.