A woman who says she was sexually abused by a middle-school teacher has gone to an appeals court after her lawsuit against the Miami-Dade County School Board was dismissed because of a statute of limitations.
The woman, identified in court documents as Jane Doe, filed the lawsuit last year against the school board over sexual assaults that allegedly occurred when she was a student at Brownsville Middle School.
The lawsuit alleged that teacher Wendell Nibbs began sexually harassing the woman after she entered sixth grade in 2012 and that she was subsequently sexually assaulted and raped while a student at the school.
Time limit sinks suit
But Circuit Judge Vivianne Del Rio last month dismissed the lawsuit, saying the woman’s claims against the school board were outside a four-year statute of limitations. The judge ruled that the claims against the school board “accrued in 2013, at the latest.”
The woman’s attorney Monday filed a notice that appealed the dismissal to the 3rd District Court of Appeal.
Nibbs was accused of sexually assaulting numerous students, according to law enforcement. In 2020, he was sentenced to eight years in prison on three sexual-battery charges, according to the Florida Department of Corrections website.
