One case was settled out of court and a second remains on the docket in the 11th Judicial District in cases that involve a former middle school principal who pinched his subordinates and reportedly struck a student.
The Bloomfield Municipal School District, Mesa Alta Junior High School and then-Principal Colin Mize were sued by Natasha Gifford, the mother of a boy whom Mize reportedly struck in the back of the head while in his official capacity as school administrator.
“He told my client to bend over and smacked him in the back of the neck,” attorney Arlon Stoker said, adding that the young man underwent physical therapy because of the incident.
The complaint was filed Oct. 25, 2022, about five months after Mize reportedly struck the teenager on May 13, 2022, in the lunchroom at the school, according to court records.
In a personnel letter that the Tri-City Record obtained under the Inspection of Public Records Act, Mize admitted that he struck the child. In the letter, Mize said the incident happened May 12, 2022, which was one day earlier than reported by the Bloomfield Police Department.
He wrote:
“I had him look me in the eyes, and I explained that he broke his promise to me, and that promises are words to be valued or to not say them at all. I then asked him what they would do in Lovington – he stated ‘what?’ During that time, I had him lean his head forward, and I ‘smacked’ his neck. This was not done in an aggressive manner – he was not offended by this.”
Mize also stated in the letter that his actions might “seem malicious and hurtful,” but he was in a situation that “was built on trust, relational capacity and mutual understanding.”
Witnesses told police the child “was hit hard enough that his entire body jolted forward,” according to a Bloomfield police report dated May 18, 2022.
Stoker requested the San Juan County District Attorney’s Office file charges against Mize, but the office declined.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Brian Decker wrote in a letter, dated Jan. 27, 2022, to the Bloomfield Police Department that there was “no doubt that Mr. Mize touched (the teen), the criminal charge of battery required the touching be done in a rude, insolent or angry manner,” and Decker believed it was not done in such a way.
Although criminal charges were not filed, the Bloomfield School District settled the lawsuit out of court on April 2, 2024, and a motion to seal the records pertaining to the settlement in the case was approved by District Judge Sarah Weaver.
The motion stated that “as a public entity, settlement agreements and releases with Defendants and related documents and records are typically subject to New Mexico’s Inspection of Public Records Act.”
However, Lucinda Silva, guardian ad litem for the teenager, stated in the motion that the “disclosure of the minor beneficiary’s personal and sensitive information and identity, the settlement amount, the uses to which the settlement funds will be put and the manner in which the payments are made in this case could subject the minor to harassment.”
On July 2, 2024, a bank account was set up and funded with the settlement, and the account information was shared with Gifford and Stoker, according to court records.
“Bloomfield Municipal Schools settled out of court,” Stoker said, adding there were at least three other students and a couple of teachers who witnessed Mize striking the child. “They don’t settle out of court on lies.”
The Tri-City Record spoke with Mize, and he declined to comment.
However in an email sent to the Tri-City Record, Mize stated that the allegations made against him were false and the articles previously published contained “misinformation.”
Mize wrote:
“Considering your purpose or goal to be a primary source of information, by definition, your articles need to be based on factual information. The research y’all conducted of me giving a student a concussion is completely false and can be proven by completing an IPRA request to the right source, including the police,” Mize wrote.
The Tri-City Record has obtained copies of the police reports about the incident and has published articles based on the document.
In the case that remains, three women, who were subordinates to Mize sued him and Bloomfield Municipal Schools Board of Education, stating that his actions during their course of employment “amounted to sexual discrimination and sexual harassment,” which would be considered a violation of their civil rights.
The three women stated that Mize “pinched” them during the 2021-2022 school year at Mesa Alta Junior High. They are Dannette Lopez, vice principal at the time; Margaret Lefebre, registrar; and Holly Zuliga-Alderete, a math teacher.
The lawsuit, filed Sept. 27, 2023, states that all three women were “intentionally touched” in a “rude, insolent or angry manner” when they were “pinched,” causing injury.
The board of education was named in the suit for failing “to act appropriately to prevent injury” to the women and allowing “dangerous conditions to persist” on the school’s campus. It also was alleged the district left the women “particularly exposed and vulnerable” to actions made by Mize, when it “should have known of Defendant Mize’s improper actions.”
John Appel, the attorney for Mize, argued that Mize’s actions of “pinching” the women “on the inner arm” occurred under the “scope of duty” of his employment as principal of the middle school and that “public employees acting within the scope of duty are immune from suit tort.”
Appel further states in the motion that Mize denies that he “on several separate occasions pinched each of the plaintiffs on the inner arm.”
However, Mize “pled (sic) guilty to battery on the plaintiffs,” according to court documents, and Frank Davis and Shellie Patscheck, attorneys for the women, state in a response to his motion, that the “denial is suspect and appears to have been manufactured for the purpose of litigation.”
Appel’s motion further states that the fact that the “batteries” happened on school grounds does not allow for a complaint against Mize, because it alleges “that Mize himself was the dangerous condition.”
Appel also wrote in the motion that the case against Mize should be dismissed because the women did not seek compensation through Title VII, which allows for lawsuits to be brought against “an individual employer or supervisor,” but not against an individual employee, according to Hunt v. Central Consolidate School District and Arthur v. Bloomfield School District.
Davis and Patscheck argued that Mize cannot seek immunity, because the complaint was filed under the New Mexico Tort Claims Act, “which waives any immunity Defendant Mize might otherwise enjoy.”
David and Patscheck also stated that Mize’s “conduct against them was willful, wanton and/or reckless,” and the New Mexico Constitution has “strong public policy” that “prohibits sex discrimination in the workplace,” yet they were “subjected to consistent and pervasive unwanted sexual advances, inappropriate touching, and a hostile work environment.”
They argue all of this was perpetrated by Mize, who was their direct supervisor and could take “disciplinary action against school employees,” principal of the school.
In the email to the Tri-City Record, Mize also commented on this case stating:
“The other articles weren’t fact either, minus the truth of me accepting a plea agreement. If your IPRA request to the school was accurate, you would have received a detailed report from the victims themselves to the school, disproving their story by their own original words.”
District Judge Sarah Weaver has set a scheduling conference for 9:30 a.m. Sept. 18 to consider Mize’s motion to dismiss, and the plaintiff’s response.
