A Rhode Island jury has awarded $5.4 million to the family of Nathan Bruno, a 15-year-old who died by suicide in 2018. The family alleged that the football coach at Portsmouth High School, Ryan Moniz, pressured the boy to reveal the names of students who had sent harassing text messages and phone calls to the coach. The family also claimed that Moniz had football players pressure Bruno to provide the names. The jury found Moniz was both negligent and that his actions caused Bruno’s suicide. The school district will pay the award.
This is not the first time a school district has been ordered to pay after a student takes their own life. In 2023, a Utah school district agreed to pay $2 million to the family of a Black, autistic 10-year-old girl who killed herself after being harassed by her classmates.
Bruno’s suicide led to the removal of Moniz as football coach, although he is still listed on the district’s website as a teacher. Rhode Island’s legislature passed a law in 2021 named in honor of Bruno that requires all public school districts to adopt suicide prevention policies and train school personnel in suicide awareness and prevention.
The lawsuit filed by Bruno’s family alleges that the coach, the town of Portsmouth, and several school administrators “breached their duties” to Bruno, placing “mental and emotional stress upon” him in the weeks before his death. They say the defendants failed to tell Bruno’s parents about a police investigation involving him, reassigned him to another physical education class without telling his parents, allowed Moniz to pressure him and failed to meet with the student, who had offered to apologize for making the calls.
Jamestown Detective Derek Carlino, who investigated the case after Moniz filed a complaint, was also accused of sharing confidential police information about Bruno with Moniz. The jury found a former principal and assistant principal at Portsmouth High School as well as Carlino negligent.
“We have tremendous respect for Judge Licht and the jury system,” said Marc DeSisto, who represented the town. “There are fundamental legal issues still pending in the Superior Court and potentially the Rhode Island Supreme Court impacting the determination of whether someone should be held responsible for the suicide of another.”
The jury awarded the family $3.1 million, which with interest since the boy’s death, would increase to $5.4 million.
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