Whatever happened with APS cotton game?

[Anonymous]

Given the flurry of media attention the claims received at the time, it would be nice to see ArlNow or some other news source do some follow up reporting, even if it’s only to declare that the parties have settled and the terms of the settlement are confidential.

[Anonymous]

1). Justin Fairfax won’t respond because he didn’t actually get a settlement so it doesn’t help him.

2). Arlington has nothing to say. They don’t usually give a media statement of: we did not settle a lawsuit that was never ever filed?

3.). There’s no way to look it up in a court system or something because Fairfax never filed a complaint. He just said nonsense words in the media but he didn’t actually follow through because his case was trash and a judge probably wouldn’t sanctioned him for filing it.

I can’t imagine how you will get someone to say we paid nothing. It would only be Arlington. And I don’t know what mechanism that would flow through. I’d love to have this shutdown.

[Anonymous]

I don't know what happened with that case, but fortunately the school got a new principal who is more focused on academics than on requiring teachers have their classes play stupid games.

[Anonymous]

Are cotton balls not allowed in APS anymore? That would be a sign that Fairfax brought home the bacon. Otherwise, I think APS would send a bizarre community email about cotton if they paid out.

[Anonymous]

Anytime someone files a case/sues someone, it would be to Arlington Circuit Court if the incident happened in Arlington. I imagine it wouldn't take someone too long to see how many cases APS has pending.


And I would 99.9% be for certain that this case was never in the docket.

[Anonymous]

Justin Fairfax posts all his wins/media coverage on his website. Crickets about this one since the initial media coverage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Anytime someone files a case/sues someone, it would be to Arlington Circuit Court if the incident happened in Arlington. I imagine it wouldn't take someone too long to see how many cases APS has pending.


And I would 99.9% be for certain that this case was never in the docket.

This has previously been covered. He DID NOT FILE A COMPLAINT in any court of law. Why you ask? Well, because it was nonsense garbage. You don’t have to be 99.9% sure. I am here to tell you it’s 100%. No complaint. No lawsuit. No money.

[Anonymous]

Quick question, though. Isn’t the idea behind an outrageous demand letter to encourage settlement without the necessity of filing suit? Or is it almost always necessary to have an actual court case pending to get the parties to enter a settlement? And as for what APS discloses with respect to settling legal disputes, I’m not familiar with the way legal expenses are itemized in the budget. Is it just a dollar figure that doesn’t distinguish between legal fees and payouts? Or is there a way to look at the numbers and determine whether anyone other than lawyers have been paid?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Quick question, though. Isn’t the idea behind an outrageous demand letter to encourage settlement without the necessity of filing suit? Or is it almost always necessary to have an actual court case pending to get the parties to enter a settlement? And as for what APS discloses with respect to settling legal disputes, I’m not familiar with the way legal expenses are itemized in the budget. Is it just a dollar figure that doesn’t distinguish between legal fees and payouts? Or is there a way to look at the numbers and determine whether anyone other than lawyers have been paid?

I can only speak to your first question. Governments are notoriously slow movers. They cannot, by design, act quickly. So the idea that they would get a demand letter and then just react with a settlement is in my view unrealistic.
In order to pay out taxpayer money a government typically goes through and assesses the value of a case. Somebody had to do a whole memo justifying paying money out, which belongs to us taxpayers. It’s not like a corporation which can move nimbly and the internal justification can be relatively weak. Its usually doing an analysis of the value of each legal claim—so for example looking at Count 1, the applicable statue, the alleged facts supporting it, and successful outcomes for plaintiffs making the same or similar allegation. Then discounting for the risk of litigation. Here, there was no complaint to assess those things. What statute did Arlington violate, what facts support that, and then who else won similar cases. It’s a lot of work. It’s not just: hey I’m mad about this and going to file a lawsuit. In theory, Fairfax could’ve given Arlington one of these before filing. But even accounting for the fact that Justin Fairfax isn’t exactly a workhorse, governments usually wait (as I said they don’t move quickly) until there is actually something that they HAVE TO respond to in the form of legal process. Any settlement here presupposes that Arlington got ahead of a filing but thats not what happens in the real world when dealing with governments. Finally, the facts on their face are so incredibly unsupportive of any semblance of a real discrimination claim that I don’t buy any monies were paid.

As to your latter question I would be shocked if Arlington could list settlement payouts as “legal fees.” I don’t know but in the world I live in those monies are paid to lawyers for legal work (and the corpus of settlement $ is not that).

[Anonymous]

IMO what could have happened is this based on the details from the original thread

the issue with residency got brought up very early on in the discussion.

It is likely that the mom believed owning a business in Arl Co and using that address was ok to establish residency.

Then APS said sorry no doesn’t work like that but no problem your child can stay if you pay back tuition and continue to pay tuition or you become a resident of Arl Co.

This is an administrative issue and no APS lawyer would need to be involved bc the residency requirement is clear.

Falsifying residency requirements for school attendance in VA is a class 4 misdemeanor.

So my conclusion is that they came come to a mutual agreement - APS would accept that it was a honest misunderstanding on the residency and the other side would agree there was an honest misunderstanding on the intentions of the teacher

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:IMO what could have happened is this based on the details from the original thread

the issue with residency got brought up very early on in the discussion.

It is likely that the mom believed owning a business in Arl Co and using that address was ok to establish residency.

Then APS said sorry no doesn’t work like that but no problem your child can stay if you pay back tuition and continue to pay tuition or you become a resident of Arl Co.

This is an administrative issue and no APS lawyer would need to be involved bc the residency requirement is clear.

Falsifying residency requirements for school attendance in VA is a class 4 misdemeanor.

So my conclusion is that they came come to a mutual agreement - APS would accept that it was a honest misunderstanding on the residency and the other side would agree there was an honest misunderstanding on the intentions of the teacher

Let's be clear... the Mom does not OWN the daycare. She works there. So did her aunt, who's address she was using. The daycare (CDC First Baptist Church) is at a facility in Clarendon, not at her aunt's house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:IMO what could have happened is this based on the details from the original thread

the issue with residency got brought up very early on in the discussion.

It is likely that the mom believed owning a business in Arl Co and using that address was ok to establish residency.

Then APS said sorry no doesn’t work like that but no problem your child can stay if you pay back tuition and continue to pay tuition or you become a resident of Arl Co.

This is an administrative issue and no APS lawyer would need to be involved bc the residency requirement is clear.

Falsifying residency requirements for school attendance in VA is a class 4 misdemeanor.

So my conclusion is that they came come to a mutual agreement - APS would accept that it was a honest misunderstanding on the residency and the other side would agree there was an honest misunderstanding on the intentions of the teacher

Complete fanfic

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Given the flurry of media attention the claims received at the time, it would be nice to see ArlNow or some other news source do some follow up reporting, even if it’s only to declare that the parties have settled and the terms of the settlement are confidential.

Exactly. It’s infuriating when the media jumps all over a story and then doesn’t do any follow up where it’s clearly warranted. How do you publicize a $10 million demand and then just let the story die? That’s the part that really bugs me. I happen to be in the camp that thought the “legal claims” had no teeth and no monetary settlement was paid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is this something someone could do a FOIA request for?

You might get some info through a FOIA but a lot would be withheld or redacted, especially any communications with the county’s own legal team.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:IMO what could have happened is this based on the details from the original thread

the issue with residency got brought up very early on in the discussion.

It is likely that the mom believed owning a business in Arl Co and using that address was ok to establish residency.

Then APS said sorry no doesn’t work like that but no problem your child can stay if you pay back tuition and continue to pay tuition or you become a resident of Arl Co.

This is an administrative issue and no APS lawyer would need to be involved bc the residency requirement is clear.

Falsifying residency requirements for school attendance in VA is a class 4 misdemeanor.

So my conclusion is that they came come to a mutual agreement - APS would accept that it was a honest misunderstanding on the residency and the other side would agree there was an honest misunderstanding on the intentions of the teacher

Complete fanfic

Especially since important details are incorrect. " the mom believed owning a business in Arl Co and using that address was ok to establish residency" The mom did not own a business AND the address she was using was a relatives, not a business.