Sometimes the person who reaches out is not the student who was harmed. It may be a parent, a sibling, a partner, or a friend who wants to understand what can be done. Asking on someone else's behalf is fine, and it happens often. The person involved has no obligation to do anything.
What you learn can help the person you care about make their own decision later. They do not need to have reported the abuse to police, and nobody needs to have been charged. A civil claim asks what the college or university knew, what it should have known, and what it did.
Attorney Ervin Nevitt, a partner at Coplan + Crane, reviews these cases. He is registered with the Illinois bar (6319808) and was admitted in 2014.
What is useful to know
Title IX and a civil claim are separate things. Title IX governs how a federally funded school responds to a report. It can also support an abuse lawsuit for damages where the school knew and responded with deliberate indifference. A state-law civil claim seeks compensation for the harm itself. A survivor can have one, the other, or both.
How the type of school changes things
Where the institution is a state university, a state-law claim runs against its board in the Illinois Court of Claims. Where it is a community college, the Illinois Tort Immunity Act applies. Where it is private, neither applies, and the liability questions are the ordinary institutional ones.
Who a claim would be against
These claims are usually brought against the college or university, not only against the individual. The theory that most often carries them is institutional response failure, though several run together in practice, and which one fits depends on the facts.
Common Questions Around Asking for Someone Else
Will their name be public? Steps can be taken to protect identity in the court record. We explain them before anything is filed.
The person who did it has died. A claim can still proceed. It is usually brought against the institution that placed that person in a position of trust.
Will asking start a case? No. Nothing is set in motion by asking a question.
What happens when you contact us
You speak with a person, not a form, and nobody has to describe what happened. We look into which institution was responsible, what it knew, what records exist, and whether a claim can still be brought. That work costs nothing.
We tell you plainly what is possible. If the decision is not to go ahead, that is the end of it, and what was shared stays confidential. If the decision is to go ahead, we carry the filings, deadlines, records, and the institution's insurers.
Call (708) 671-6858 for a free, confidential case review.
