In what is one of the largest settlement’s with a county board of education in West Virginia, an agreement has been reached that awards $5 million to four students and their parents/guardians in an abuse investigation of special needs students at Horace Mann Middle School. The four lawsuits against Lilliana, or Lillian, Branham, Walter Pannell, Anthony Wilson and the Kanawha County Board of Education were previously consolidated into a single suit and assigned to Kanawha County Circuit Court Judge Carrie Webster.
The suits said that physical and verbal abuse happened on several occasions and included, among other allegations, children being slapped in the face multiple times, slapped in the arm, aggressively grabbed and violently slammed onto a bean bag chair in May 2021. The suits claimed the now former employees mocked, taunted and ridiculed the special needs students as a result of their disabilities. In an order, Webster said the settlement amount could be disclosed, but the identity of the plaintiffs and the individual settlement amounts would remain under seal.