Identifying the institution is the first real task
Westchester’s schooling is spread across a large number of separate public districts, and the
county also has an unusually dense concentration of independent day and boarding schools. Two
schools a few miles apart can be entirely different legal entities with different governance,
different records and different procedural requirements.
Getting that wrong is not a technicality. Public-entity claims can carry early notice
requirements that private-school claims do not.
Boarding and independent schools
Where a school is residential, the duty of care extends beyond the school day, see
boarding school abuse claims. These cases
frequently involve events from decades earlier and surface in groups, as former pupils find each
other.
Local detail that shapes a claim here
| Local detail | Who or what |
|---|---|
| County | Westchester County |
| Police | Westchester County Police and municipal departments |
| Hospital system | Westchester Medical Center |
| Hospital system | White Plains Hospital |
| Hospital system | NewYork-Presbyterian Hudson Valley Hospital |
| University | Pace University (Pleasantville) |
| University | Iona University |
| University | SUNY Purchase |
| University | Sarah Lawrence College |
| University | Manhattanville University |
| Local crisis support | My Sisters’ Place, (800) 298-7233 |
| Diocese | Archdiocese of New York, NO, did not file Chapter 11 |
Support in Westchester County
If what you need now is support rather than a lawyer, see
survivor resources, including the RAINN hotline on
1-800-656-4673. Those services are free and independent of this
firm.
Time limits in New York depend on how old you were, who was responsible and the particular facts. There is no single deadline that applies to everyone. Ask rather than assume. It is a free call.
I am not sure which district my school belonged to.
Westchester’s districts are numerous and their boundaries are not intuitive. Identifying the right one is routine work and is done before anything is filed.
It was an independent day school, not a public one.
Then the school itself is generally the defendant rather than a district, with different governance, different records and different procedural requirements.
The school is in Westchester but I live in the city now.
Not a problem. What matters is where the abuse happened and which institution was responsible.