Brad Mathewson's decision to drop out of Webb City High School, which was revealed yesterday in The Turner Report, then carried this morning in The Joplin Globe, has changed the outlook of the 16-year-old's lawsuit against the school district considerably.
The district's attorneys wasted no time filing documents in the U. S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri reflecting the changing status of the case.
According to yesterday's filing, Mathewson's lawyer, Jim Fleischaker of Joplin, has consented to an extension of time for the school district to respond to Mathewson's original petition. The district now has until Thursday, Dec. 23, to file its response.
The extension will not cause any problems for Mathewson, the document said, since he is no longer enrolled at Webb City.
Of course, the additional time may become a moot point since Mathewson dropped out. According to the Globe, Webb City's lawyer believes Mathewson's decision effectively ends the suit since any decision concerning the R-7 dress code will no longer affect him. The article noted that other students were sent home the week after Mathewson filed his lawsuit when they wore t-shirts supporting his stance. Apparently, Fleischaker or American Civil Liberties Union representatives will contact those students seeking a continuation and broadening of the case.
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Meanwhile, a woman who was tossed out of Soul's Harbor in Joplin, then arrested by the Joplin Police Department for disturbing the peace, is suing Soul's Harbor and the city, according to a petition filed Thursday in U. S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri.
Lori Bordock, Springfield, is seeking more than a million dollars each from Soul's Harbor and the city of Joplin, according to the suit.
Ms. Bordock claims her civil rights were violated when she was handcuffed and put in a cell with "dangerous criminals" The mattress at the jail bothered her back and she said she was eventually forced to plead guilty to a crime she didn't commit in order to get out of that place.
"I could not take the inhuman treatment," she said, in the handwritten petition.
She filed the suit on her own, she said, because "the lawyers always ask for money. Ms. Bordock said she wanted the seven-figure payout to recompense her "for this horrendous incident that happened to me, a decent American."