CHARLESTON — Three cases have been filed against Miracle Meadows School, alleging bodily injury, invasion of privacy and false imprisonment.
Seventh-Day Adventist Church-North American Division Inc., Advent Home Learning Center Inc., Blodel Senior, E.A. Sutherland Education Association Inc., Adventist Laymen's Services & Industries, Outpost Centers International, Columbia Union Conference Association of Seventh Day Adventists Inc., Mountain View Conference Association of Seventh-Day Adventists, Miracle Meadows School, Susan Gayle Clark, Timothy Arrington;,the Layman Foundation, ASI Missions Inc., and Kingsley Whitsett were all named defendants in the suit.
F.F. and L.F., as parents of Z.F.; C.J. and K.W., also allege the defendants committed education malpractice and other wrongful acts upon many minor children while the youngsters were students at the school, according to three cases filed in Kanawha Circuit Court.
The plaintiffs allege their children suffered significant abuse at the hands of the defendants, as well as other children who were enrolled there. The defendants, the suit says, owed a legal duty to the plaintiffs to care for them and to not be negligent, but they repeatedly breached their duty of care.
The plaintiffs say the defendants failed to inform parents of the incidents of child abuse and neglect, as well as failing to inform the appropriate authorities.
The defendants also negligently failed to ensure that its employees had proper and adequate training and experience to protect the students from harm, according to the suits.
The plaintiffs, the suits say, suffered serious emotional distress because of the defendants' actions. The plaintiffs also say the defendants were aware of the child abuse and mistreatment as far back as December 2000.
Susan Gayle Clark, founder and director of Miracle Meadows, was sentenced to jail time and probation in 2016.
The plaintiffs seek compensatory and punitive damages. They are represented by attorneys Guy R. Bucci, R. Scott Long, Ashley N. Lynch and John K. Cecil of Hendrickson & Long, and by V. Paul Bucci II, Brian D. Kent and Gaetano A. D'Andrea of Laffey Bucci & Kent.
The cases were assigned to Circuit Judges Louis Bloom, Thomas Evans and Carrie Webster.
Kanawha Circuit Court case numbers: 18-C-754, 18-C-755, 18-C-757
