Court Rules Against Teacher with Phobia of Children

Summary: A woman filed a breach of contract claim against a school district, arguing that she should be allowed to stay at the high school where she taught instead of being transferred to a middle school due to her phobia of children.

According to the Huffington Post, a retired teacher has lost her appeal against the school district where she once worked.

Maria Waltherr-Willard, 63, filed a breach of contract claim against Mariemont City Schools. Waltherr-Willard taught French and Spanish at Mariemont High School in Cincinatti from the 1970s until 2009, when she was transferred to a middle school.

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Waltherr-Willard’s complaint alleged that teaching seventh and eighth graders triggered her phobia of young kids. According to Wikipedia, this is called pedophobia. The complaint further alleged that Waltherr-Willard’s blood pressure skyrocketed. She apparently was so distressed that she was forced to retire in the middle of the 2010-2011 academic school year. The suit sought unspecified damages.

In 2012, Vivendi was forced to pay over $950 million for a breach of contract claim.

A trial court dismissed the breach of contract claim, and Waltherr-Willard appealed the decision. On Wednesday, a three-judge panel on the 6^th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati upheld the decision to dismiss the case. In addition, the school ruled for the school district on Waltherr-Willard’s other claims, including disability and age discrimination.

According to an attorney for the school district, Waltherr-Willard was transferred because the French program at the high school was being converted into online courses. The middle school had a need for a Spanish teacher.

Earlier this year, a court found that Harvard did not defame a student by noting plagiarism on her transcript.

Waltherr-Willard had argued that her communications with several school officials created a contract that required the district to keep her at the high school. However, the appeals court dismissed that argument, stating, “But the Mariemont School Board undisputedly never ratified such a contract, which means for our purposes that there was not one.”

Source: Huffington Post

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