Hacienda La Puente Unified School District reaches $18 million settlement with family of disabled boy who died after fall at school

The Hacienda La Puente Unified School District has agreed to pay $18 million to the family of an 8-year-old boy with Down syndrome who died in 2017 after falling off a chair at school, the Los Angeles Times reports.

The family’s attorney told the Los Angeles Times that Moises Murillo could not walk, talk or sit up straight, and was supposed to be seated in an adaptive stroller. But a teacher who was not familiar with Moises’ individualized education program, or IEP, took the boy out of the stroller and strapped him into a chair using a gait belt when they couldn’t fit the stroller at a desk.

Moises was left unsupervised, according to the Los Angeles Times, while he pushed against the desk and tipped backward. His head struck the concrete floor, which severed a piece of his vertebra. He was taken to a hospital where he died after four days on life support.

The district admitted no wrongdoing in the settlement.