Lawyers argue constitutionality of court case

A lawsuit accusing Burke County school leaders of ignoring years of alleged sexual abuse faces possible dismissal after a judge struck a key filing this week.

The lawsuit, filed by an unidentified Jane Doe in October 2025, is spearheaded by Peter Grenier of the Washington, D.C.-based firm, Grenier Law Group, PLLC.

On Feb. 3, the attorney submitted a request to file a 51-page response to the defense’s December motion to dismiss, exceeding the page limit set by the court. The court struck the filing the following day, Feb. 4, citing rules that restrict page length.

The court later granted partial approval, allowing a revised response of up to 35 pages, which must be filed by Feb. 11. If the plaintiff does not submit a revised filing by that deadline, the court could rule on the motion to dismiss.

As of Wednesday afternoon, Grenier said he was actively revising the response to comply with the 35-page limit.

BACKGROUND ON THE CASE

In the complaint, Doe alleges “negligence and deliberate indifference” from the Burke County Public Schools Board of Education (BOE), former school Superintendent David Burleson, former Glen Alpine Elementary principal Kathy Amos, and former Hildebran Elementary principal Wendi Craven.

The alleged indifference allowed former elementary school teacher Michael Andrew Alexander, who is also named in the filing, to sexually abuse dozens of elementary students for more than a decade, according to the lawsuit.

DEFENSE RESPONDS

Following the initial 46-page complaint accusing the former school leaders of deliberate indifference and negligence, Defense Attorney Andrew “Andy” Santaniello, of Pope Aylward Sweeney and Santaniello, LLP, responded in December, filing a 19-page answer to the complaint.

The answer denied nearly every claim made against all defendants aside from Alexander, who is not represented by Santaniello. At the same time, the defense entered a 21-page memorandum from the represented defendants to support a motion to dismiss the case.

“We were not seeking to throw the entire suit out,” Santaniello said. “We were trying to narrow it down to the causes of action that are really in scope.”

Santaniello argued that the original complaint does not consider the qualified and public official immunity that Amos, Burleson, and Craven should possess as government officials; came after the statute of limitations in the state expired; and that there was no special relationship between the defendants and Doe constituting their liability.

“Government officials are protected, unless they knowingly violate the law or are plainly incompetent,” the memorandum stated before quoting an earlier court case, “Additionally, ‘officials are not liable for bad guesses in gray areas; they are liable for transgressing bright lines.’”

STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS CHALLENGES

The defense also alleged that the time between the statute of limitations and this court case delayed due process for the defendants, inhibiting the defendants’ ability to argue against accusations.

Santaniello claimed that Doe’s 18th birthday would have occurred during 2016, meaning North Carolina’s three-year statute of limitations would have expired in 2019. According to the defense, the same statutory section also included a 10-year statute of repose, meaning 2022, 10 years after the last act or omission of the defendants, should have been the cutoff for filing.

NO SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP

“The mere fact that the plaintiff was a student in the BOE system does not create a special relationship,” the defense said. According to the defense, none of the defendants specifically took on the responsibility of caring or protecting Doe.

Furthermore, the memorandum explained that, since none of the defendants hurt the plaintiff, they are not responsible for the trauma caused by Alexander’s criminal actions. The defense said that Doe, at best, alleges an omission by the defendants to protect her from harm.

WHERE ALEXANDER IS IN THE CASE

On Dec. 15, the court entered a default judgment against Alexander after he failed to respond to the lawsuit, effectively accepting Doe’s claims as uncontested. By not responding, Alexander gave up his chance to defend himself and left the outcome up to the court.

Alexander is now serving nearly 50 years in prison for a series of sex crimes discovered by Europol, the European police agency, during a 2012 sting of a child pornography ring based in Spain.

Investigators at the time traced the recorded sexual acts back to Alexander because the videos and photos of young girls contained some children wearing Burke County Public Schools T-shirts, according to previous court documents.