$9 Million Settlement for 32 Former Athletes Abused by Miles City School Trainer James Jensen

For nearly three decades, James Jensen worked as the athletic trainer at Custer County District High School in Miles City, Montana. During that time, he devised what he called 'The Program,' telling young male athletes the routine massages and physical manipulation he performed would raise testosterone levels and improve their performance. It was a lie designed to give him access to abuse. Dozens of students were victimized before he was removed from the school in 1998.

By the time John Heenan of Heenan and Cook filed suit against the Miles City Unified School District in 2018, the case had 32 named plaintiffs. Federal investigators estimated Jensen may have abused as many as 100 boys over his career. The lawsuit centered not only on Jensen's conduct but on what the institution knew and when it knew it. Evidence showed that by 1997, at least three people had alerted district officials to Jensen's behavior in the training room. The district issued him a disciplinary memo that year for violating the 'spirit and intent' of school policies. The abuse continued through 1998.

While the civil case proceeded, Jensen faced separate criminal accountability. In July 2019 he was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison on charges of coercion and enticement. A state court added 20 years in August 2019 for child pornography possession. He was 79 at the time of sentencing.

The school district's own insurer initially filed a federal action attempting to disclaim financial responsibility, but dropped that case in the weeks before resolution. A two-day mediation brought survivors and school board members into the same process, and in November 2019 the parties reached a $9 million settlement, funded by the district's insurers with no taxpayer dollars. The district also agreed to adopt new policies on sexual abuse prevention and mandatory reporting.

Heenan noted that for most of the 32 men, the money was secondary. The plaintiffs planned to channel proceeds into a nonprofit focused on advocacy for other child sex abuse survivors in Montana. Their case also drew attention to a gap in state law: in 2019, Montana legislators passed a bill removing the statute of limitations on child sexual abuse criminal charges, a change advocates tied directly to the Jensen case.