Teen suicide: Wrongful death lawsuit against Maryland, US prep school over boy’s suicide moves forward

Scott and Dawn Schnell at their attorney’s office earlier this year. Photo / Ricky Carioti / The Washington Post

WARNING: This story deals with suicide and self-harm. Please see below for help and crisis information.

A couple’s wrongful death lawsuit against the Landon School over their teenage son’s suicide can move forward after a judge ruled they raised sufficient allegations that the all-boys prep school in suburban Maryland could have foreseen the tragedy.

“To the extent that schools can mitigate youth self-harm, they should,” Montgomery County Circuit Judge Louis Leibowitz wrote. “And finding that defendants shoulder such a duty is in line with our community’s push toward detection and intervention.”

His opinion addressed whether the parents - Dawn and Scott Schnell - had legal backing to bring their claims, not whether the claims were true. In doing so, the judge narrowed what allegations the Schnells could present to a jury should the case go to trial as scheduled next May.

A lawyer for the couple said they were heartened that the judge said the wrongful death portion of the case could move forward. Landon’s lawyers had asked that the entire case be dismissed.

Family photos show Charlie Schnell, the late son of Dawn and Scott Schnell. Photo / Ricky Carioti /The Washington Post

“The court issued an important legal victory,” Debra Soltis said, “not just for the Schnells but for students and parents everywhere.”

Charlie Schnell was 16 in 2022 when he took down the Landon banner from above his bed and used it to take his own life in his bedroom. His parents had withdrawn him from the school 13 days earlier amid accusations that he had drawn a violent image directed at black people and had shown it to a black classmate.

A Landon spokeswoman declined to comment about the new ruling. In the past, the school has strongly denied both the lawsuit’s claims and its description of the conduct of the school’s administrators and educators.

“At Landon, we have no higher duty than supporting the well-being of our boys, a role we take very seriously,” a school spokesperson said earlier. “We continue to feel only compassion for the grief that this family is experiencing over the devastating loss of their son. We will continue to navigate this situation with respect, compassion, and sensitivity.”

The ruling also paved the way for the Schnells’s attorneys to depose Charlie’s former classmates and Landon officials, according to court filings. The school’s attorneys will get another chance to have the lawsuit dismissed if they file a motion for summary judgment before the trial date.

In March, Landon’s attorneys asked Leibowitz to dismiss the lawsuit, leading to a lengthy hearing and the written opinion. In it, the judge went through difficulties experienced by Charlie over the last eight months of his life and how Landon allegedly reacted or didn’t react to them.

In August 2021, the father of a close friend of Charlie’s killed himself. A month later, another Landon student threatened to carry out a school shooting, a statement later determined by the school not to be credible. Charlie seemed shaken by the threat, according to Leibowitz’s opinion, and in a journal entry submitted to his English teacher expressed concerns while lamenting how illness had put him behind in classes. The teen underwent two surgeries, contracted mononucleosis, suffered a concussion in wrestling practice and developed Covid-19, Leibowitz wrote.

An entrance to the Landon School. Photo / Dan Morse / The Washington Post

Leibowitz ruled that some of Charlie’s difficulties spoke to the possible “foreseeability” of suicide, and that some did not. The teen’s concerns over school shootings, as expressed in the journal entry, fell into the latter category.

“Admittedly sad,” the judge wrote, but “not at all uncommon for teenagers.”

But Charlie’s struggle in school after his concussion carried weight, Leibowitz wrote, especially given that his mother had emailed Landon employees about Charlie being “so down and overwhelmed.”

Charlie’s history of disciplinary issues at the school probably will be a big part of future proceedings.

Leibowitz addressed them, writing that in March 2022, Charlie was brought before the school’s discipline committee after uttering the word “pussy” under his breath at a lacrosse coach in practice. It was the third time he had used inappropriate language, according to the school. As the committee weighed the matter, a separate and far more serious allegation surfaced: The teen had purportedly crafted a racist image and shown it to a black classmate. In an email to Dawn and Scott Schnell, which is now part of the court record, the head of Landon’s Upper School characterised the imagery as hateful, violent and “unprecedented in my time at Landon.”

In their lawsuit, the Schnells said Landon officials never actually saw the drawing.

And in his final two weeks alive, the Schnells assert, Charlie was forced to withdraw from school, Landon officials spoke badly about him to other students, and the officials did nothing to quell subsequent online bullying of him by other Landon students. Leibowitz keyed in those allegations in his opinion because, if true, they spoke to foreseeability and a jury could link them to his death as a “proximate cause,” the judge wrote.

Landon’s attorneys have said in court papers that at school, Charlie never showed signs of suicidal intent or ideation, and that Landon’s duty to protect him ended when he withdrew.

“While the Landon community joins plaintiffs in grieving for CS’s death, there is no basis for a claim against Landon or the individual defendants,” the school’s attorneys wrote in court papers, adding, “The complaint provides a lengthy history of CS’s time and experiences at Landon, but plaintiffs overlook or misconstrue several key details about those events.”

The attorneys also addressed the violent image Charlie allegedly crafted, suggesting that just because it may have angered other students doesn’t mean Landon officials could know what would happen.

“Knowledge that Landon students were upset following CS’s creation of a racist drawing does not give rise to an inference that CS would commit suicide,” attorneys Jason Waters and Christopher Manning wrote.

The opinion notes that at this stage in the litigation, when defendants are requesting that a lawsuit be dismissed, a judge must view stated allegations “in the light most favourable to the plaintiffs.” Even by this measure, he granted Landon’s request to dismiss two of the more aggressive claims: that Landon’s conduct represented intentional infliction of emotional distress and violated Maryland’s Consumer Protection Act.

Claims of intentional infliction are rarely supported by Maryland law. They must be tied to “extreme and outrageous” conduct, Leibowitz wrote, and “strike to the very core of one’s being.” The alleged actions on Landon’s part, even if true, fall short of the standard, the judge concluded.

Similarly, the Schnells’ claim that Landon engaged in “unfair or deceptive trade practices” can’t be supported legally because Maryland’s Consumer Protection Act isn’t written for schools, according to the judge. “The court finds... Landon’s offerings to be outside the definition of ‘consumer services,’” Leibowitz wrote.