9-year-old sickened after school worker made her eat food from trash, Ohio lawsuit says

An Ohio mother is suing the school district her 9-year-old daughter attends, saying an employee forced the girl to eat food that had been “dug out of the garbage.”

The federal civil rights lawsuit — which was filed Wednesday, Dec. 8, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio — says the girl’s rights were violated. It also says the girl suffered physical and emotional trauma as a result of the incident, which reportedly took place at Palm Elementary School, part of the Lorain City School District, in northeastern Ohio.

The school district told McClatchy News in a statement that it is “investigating [the] allegations” and placed “any staff member who could potentially be involved in incidents of this serious nature on immediate paid administrative leave” as an investigation continues.

The girl sat down in the cafeteria to eat with friends during her lunch period on Nov. 21, the lawsuit says.

She chose waffles for lunch, but after a few bites, decided they weren’t very good, according to the lawsuit. She raised her hand and asked the principal of Palm Elementary School if she could have something else instead, and was told no.

Not wanting to finish the waffles, she threw them away, the lawsuit says.

A school employee saw this, took the food out of the trash, sat the girl down and made her eat the unfinished waffles in front of her friends, according to the lawsuit.

“Frightened” and “embarrassed,” the girl did as she was told while “all the other kids began to laugh at her,” the lawsuit says.

When she got home after school, the girl started to feel sick, the lawsuit says. She told her mother what happened and they went to see a doctor, and found that she “had developed a fever.”

Her daughter hasn’t been the same since that day, Latasha Williams told WOIO.

“It literally flipped my whole family upside down,” Williams told the outlet, adding that she lost her job while caring for her daughter while she was sick. “She has changed at home. She doesn’t act the same. She doesn’t even want to go to school.”

The lawsuit is seeking money as compensation for the damages mentioned, and also calls for the district to take actions to prevent similar incidents from happening again.

This story was originally published December 9, 2021 at 1:50 PM with the headline "9-year-old sickened after school worker made her eat food from trash, Ohio lawsuit says."