Santa Clara County Jury Awards $65 Million to One Survivor in $102.5 Million Verdict Against Union School District

For years, parents and students warned Union School District administrators that Samuel Neipp, a band teacher at Dartmouth Middle School in San Jose, was behaving inappropriately with students. Complaints arrived as early as 2010 and again in 2013. The district did not formally discipline Neipp. Instead, it granted him tenure and named him Teacher of the Year. The abuse, which began as early as 2009, continued until 2017.

Neipp exploited the trust placed in him by students and their families. He used threats, including threats to release intimate images, to coerce compliance and silence his victims. One woman was only 13 when the abuse began. When one victim finally reported him in 2017, Neipp was arrested. He later pleaded no contest to a dozen felony charges and was sentenced to 56 years in prison.

The two survivors filed civil lawsuits in 2019, and the cases were consolidated for a single trial. Lauren Cerri of Cerri, Boskovich and Allard represented one of the plaintiffs. The trial focused on what district administrators knew, when they knew it, and whether their decisions to ignore documented warnings constituted negligence. The jury found the district bore 80 percent of civil liability for one victim and 55 percent for the other.

On March 29, 2022, the jury returned a verdict of $102.5 million: $65 million for the plaintiff Lauren Cerri represented and $37.5 million for the second plaintiff. The district moved for a new trial and challenged the judgment. In June 2022, Superior Court Judge Eric Geffon denied those motions and upheld the verdict in full.

The combined award was among the largest civil verdicts in Santa Clara County history in a school district sexual abuse case.