Story Archive

How Do You Feel about Lawsuits?

Jon and Michelle Heinemann sent their son, 5, to New York’s Cathedral School of St. John the Divine. That meant $39,000 in tuition. They donated $6,000 in designer clothes for the school’s auction. They agreed to submit bids for the silent auction — even though their son had been “left out of school exhibits” and “made to go last at nearly everything” and even “relegated to the role of ‘door holder’.” But when school officials allegedly rigged the auction to make the Heinemanns pay $50,000 for tracings of students’ hands with their answers to the question, “How do you feel about art?”, that was the last straw: they withdrew their son and filed a lawsuit, seeking $20,000 for tuition at another school, plus other costs, including $60,000 in salary for a driver they no longer need. (AC/ABC News) ...They were willing to pay nearly $100,000 to send their son to a school where they thought he was being mistreated, but they drew the line at a rigged bid of half that much?