The student’s unpleasant encounter occurred in an elevator of the campus parking garage in February 2016. In 2017, she filed a lawsuit seeking $15,000 in damages. Martha Rhine | The Crow’s Nest
By Emily Wunderlich
A former student who was accosted in the campus parking garage in 2016 has amended her lawsuit against the university after a Pinellas County circuit judge dismissed it “in part.”
The original complaint, filed in 2017 by a woman identified as L.E., contends that both the university and its police department “failed to comply with state and county laws and ordinances” in their maintenance of the premises.
In its motion to dismiss the case, the university cited sovereign immunity — a long-standing tenet of English law that says it can do no wrong as an agency of state government.
The university held that its discretionary or “planning-level” functions were immune from liability and that L.E. “failed to plea any basic facts” to show that USF owed a duty to protect her.
The amended complaint, filed Oct. 10, strikes this allegation but still charges two counts of negligence — one against the university and one against its police department. The university called that “redundant and immaterial” because both entities operate under the USF system Board of Trustees.
L.E. is being represented by attorney Damian Mallard of Sarasota. His office said he was unavailable for comment Friday.
The suit seeks at least $15,000 in damages because the university “failed to provide adequate security” or warn L.E. of past and potential crimes in the area before she was “sexually assaulted” by a man who masturbated behind her in a parking garage elevator Feb. 22, 2016.
