ELDRED, NY — The bullying lawsuit brought by Anthony Motta Jr. and his family against Eldred Central School District has been settled out of court. 

The family's attorney, Jean Pau Le Du of the Rubino Lawfirm of Yonkers spoke to The River Reporter about the settlement, which was for an undisclosed amount, as a condition requested by the school district. “It was a considerable amount,” said Le Du, “It was clear the school district didn’t want to have another trial.”

Christine Horne, Motta Jr.'s mother, agreed. 

“I cannot discuss the settlement amount but we are happy with it,” Horne said. She said the family plans to promote change by lobbying Albany for Motta’s Law in order to hold schools accountable for bullying cases.

Motta Jr. and others experienced bullying in school in 2016-17 that included name calling, violence and having their posessions urinated on. Le Du explained that the verdict by jury in 2017, which resulted in a $1 million dollar settlement to be paid to the family, was thrown out due to a a technicality—the jury was supposed to ignore a question on their answer sheet, but it was considered by mistake. The appellate court last March ruled that the case would be retried in December.

Le Du also said in a phone call that the win opened the floodgates to many other bullying lawsuits around the country.

“There are 112 law suits currently in New York State, and I’ve got phone calls from all over the country," he said. "Before this, we had no other cases in our books, but now we have a large portion of them... In view that the children’s suicide rate is in the hundreds and thousands, we’ve got to take it a little more seriously.”

Le Du added that it’s a widespread problem in schools and that Eldred already has other lawsuits pending on the issue.