KANSAS CITY — The Missouri Court of Appeals for the Western District has upheld a trial court's judgment awarding nearly $960,000 to a former Hogan Preparatory Academy student who alleged sexual misconduct by a teacher and sex discrimination by the school.
The appeals court affirmed the jury’s finding that Hogan Preparatory Academy Inc., violated the Missouri Human Rights Act, and that former teacher Douglas Bliss committed battery against the student, identified in court records as D.W.
In a decision authored by Judge Karen King Mitchell and joined by Judges W. Douglas Thomson and Thomas N. Chapman, the appellate court rejected all seven points raised by Hogan and Bliss in their appeal, concluding that none of their arguments warranted a new trial or reversal of the jury’s verdict.
The case stems from a March 12, 2018, incident at Hogan Middle School.
According to testimony presented at trial, D.W., a sixth-grade student at the time, went to Bliss’s classroom after school to ask for help with classwork.
During the 15 minutes she was in the room, D.W. testified, Bliss told her to shut the door, then rubbed her upper thigh and suggested keeping the encounter a “little secret.”
D.W. filed suit against Hogan for sex discrimination in a place of public accommodation under the MHRA and against Bliss for battery.
A jury trial was held in January 2023, where D.W. testified about the emotional aftermath of the encounter, including nightmares, suicidal thoughts, and a later diagnosis of “other specified trauma disorder.”
The jury awarded D.W. $350,000 in compensatory damages and $350,000 in punitive damages from Hogan. Bliss was found liable for battery and ordered to pay $250,000 in compensatory damages; the jury did not award punitive damages against him.
Bliss denied wrongdoing during the trial, though he acknowledged that touching a student’s upper thigh would violate Hogan’s sexual harassment policy.
Evidence presented also included testimony that Bliss wore tight clothing, flexed his muscles, experienced erections in class, and massaged students during school hours.
One student testified that Bliss pushed her when she refused to leave his classroom, an incident Hogan investigated and found involved inappropriate physical contact—but for which Bliss was never disciplined.
Hogan offered hallway camera footage showing D.W. entering and exiting Bliss’s classroom in a 38-second span on March 12.
D.W. claimed she returned later that afternoon, which is when the inappropriate touching occurred. The school preserved only the 38-second clip and provided no additional footage at trial.
The Kansas City Police Department and the Missouri Children’s Division investigated the matter but closed their cases without making findings.
Hogan did not disclose Bliss’s prior misconduct involving another student to either agency, though the court noted this information would have been relevant.
The jury’s verdict was followed by a court order in March 2023 awarding D.W. more than $550,000 in attorney’s fees and nearly $9,000 in costs.
Hogan and Bliss appealed, but the Missouri Court of Appeals initially dismissed the case due to the absence of a final judgment reflecting the damages.
Once the trial court issued a second amended judgment in April 2024 with the required monetary details, the appeal proceeded.
On appeal, Hogan and Bliss argued that D.W. failed to make a submissible case for either sex discrimination or punitive damages, and that the trial court erred by admitting testimony about Bliss’s erections and a separate incident where he pushed a student.
They also claimed errors in jury instructions and asserted the cumulative effect of these alleged mistakes deprived them of a fair trial.
The appellate court was unpersuaded, finding no abuse of discretion by the trial court and no evidence of substantial injustice.
“None of the first six points on appeal has merit; there is no cumulative error here,” the court concluded.
The judgment — totaling over $958,867 in damages — now stands affirmed.