DATE: Saturday, July 26, 1997               TAG: 9707260454

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MARC DAVIS, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   55 lines

EX-MUSIC TEACHER SETTLES SEX LAWSUIT WITH FORMER STUDENTS FOR $1.4 MILLION

A former music teacher at Ruffner Middle School who had sex with two students has agreed to pay the girls $1.4 million to settle their lawsuit against him.

But the students, who have since graduated from high school, probably will never get a dime, says their attorney, Thomas B. Shuttleworth.

The teacher, Dung Ba Tran, is serving a prison sentence for his sex crimes and probably will be deported to Vietnam, his native land, when he gets out, Shuttleworth said.

Despite Tran's lack of money, Shuttleworth said, he agreed to the settlement because ``we wanted to make a statement that this is an important case for these two girls.''

The lawsuit against Tran was scheduled for trial next week in Norfolk's federal court.

The girls had sued 10 other defendants, too, including the Norfolk School Board and former schools Superintendent Gene Carter, but the case against those defendants has been dismissed.

The girls' attorney voluntarily dropped claims against the board, Carter and Ruffner's assistant principal. A judge dismissed all the other claims except those against Tran.

Tran taught at Ruffner for 3 1/2 years. He was 27 when police charged him in 1994 with eight counts of carnal knowledge. One student said she started having sex with Tran when she was 13 in 1992. The other girl said she was 14 when she and Tran began having sex in his Hampton apartment in 1991.

Trans was convicted and sentenced to 15 years in Virginia Beach and five years in Hampton.

The girls sued Tran and the others last July. They claimed that school administrators failed to supervise Tran and that some teachers knew Tran was having sex with the girls but failed to intervene. The lawsuit sought $21.7 million.

At a hearing in June, Judge Henry C. Morgan Jr. dismissed all the claims except those against Tran. He issued a written opinion this week. The lawsuit had argued that Ruffner officials did not conduct an adequate investigation into rumors of Tran's sexual affairs. The judge, however, ruled that the school's investigation was adequate.

Morgan also ruled that a teacher who may have known about a sexual relationship, but did not report it, cannot be held liable. He ruled that while Virginia law does require teachers to report such abuse, they cannot be held liable in a civil lawsuit for failure to report it. The judge reasoned that state law does not give one teacher power to control another. Morgan also rejected an argument that school officials are responsible for the abuse because there was a ``special relationship'' between the students and the school.

The judge ruled that a ``special relationship'' exists only when the state takes someone into custody and holds her against her will so she cannot protect or care for herself. KEYWORDS: LAWSUIT SEX CRIME SETTLEMENT TEACHER

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