Suing schools for sex assault; restricting online porn advance

Nebraska schools could be sued for up to a million dollars if a staff member sexually assaults a student, under a proposal that advanced Tuesday in the Legislature. And a bill to increase taxes on home sellers, and reduce them on people who inherit property, also moved ahead.

Sen. Justin Wayne advocated for allowing victims of child sexual assault to sue schools if they are sexually assaulted by a staff member. Wayne argued the current law makes no sense, using as an example the remedies available against a school bus driver in different situations.

“If that bus driver is drinking or just happens to swerve and hit somebody, that individual who's hurt can sue the school district or the city and recover up to a cap of a million dollars. However, if that same bus driver is grooming and sexually assaults a child and the principal or some administrator knows and doesn't use reasonable care, which means investigates figures out some basic things about the situation? (You) can't sue,” Wayne said.

Opponents said people who are harmed can already sue the person that did it, but adding schools and other governmental entities to the list of possible targets could hurt taxpayers. Sen. Mike Jacobson stressed lawyers’ financial motivation.

“One thing that we always need to keep in mind is, whenever an attorney who's representing a client, who's suing on their behalf, they're looking for the deep pockets,” Jacobson said.

Sen. George Dungan, who’s an attorney, pushed back against that idea.

“We hear this kind of thing over and over again, about the idea that anybody who represents a plaintiff -- who is usually a survivor or a victim -- is doing it just to make money. The reality of the situation is the individuals who are doing this kind of work, the vast majority of the time, are doing so to protect and to help individuals who have been wronged, and to try to prevent that behavior in the future by virtue of holding the perpetrator accountable monetarily,” Dungan said.

Senators rejected Jacobson’s attempt to send the bill back to committee, and voted 26-17 to give the bill first round approval.

Senators also gave second-round approval to a bill that would require pornographic websites to verify that customers are over 18 before allowing them to use the site. The idea is to use a third-party vendor to verify ages by checking digital information on drivers’ licenses, for example.

Sponsoring Sen. Dave Murman said the bill is needed to protect the state’s children.

“Pornography is really causing a lot of problems, especially for minors, but for adults too. There's mental health harms. There's influences on unsafe behavior, unhealthy and even violent behavior towards women and men. And that's all found on these websites -- on these pornographic websites. So how do we protect our kids?” Murman said.

Sen. Carol Blood argued against the bill, saying kids would find their way around any restrictions, while adults risked having their digital information sold. Blood also objected to government’s involvement.

“For those of you -- and I know we have at least one senator that said this on the floor that says, -- ‘Well, adults shouldn't be looking at pornography -- I absolutely agree with you. But that is not my job to tell adults they can't do what they have the legal right to do. If they are not hurting anybody, and they are not committing crimes as a result of that, that is not our business,” Blood said.

Senators gave the bill second-round approval on a vote of 30-1.

Also Tuesday, senators advanced a bill that would have homeowners who sell their houses pay higher fees to help cut taxes on people who inherit money.

LB1163 would raise the documentary stamp tax that people pay when they sell their houses. Currently, if you sell a house for $200,000, you pay $450 in tax. The bill would raise that to $750.

That change would raise about $17 million a year. Most of that – about $11 million would go Nebraska county governments.

But those same governments would lose some tax revenue they currently collect when people inherit money or property. Right now, if a niece or nephew of someone who dies inherits $200,000, they owe about $18,000 in inheritance taxes. Under the bill, they would owe closer to $13,000. Taxes on non-relatives who inherit would also be reduced.

Sen. Rob Clements has tried repeatedly to abolish inheritance taxes, only to run into resistance from counties, who argue they need the money as an alternative to higher property taxes. But Tuesday, Clements said the increased revenues from taxes on home sellers would more than offset the counties’ loss from reducing inheritance taxes.

“I have removed the counties' objections, which is why in my bill wasn't moving previously,” Clements said.

Sen. Robert Dover, who is a realtor, objected to raising the documentary stamp fees, which he said would increase the cost of housing.

“The inheritance tax is not fair. It needs to go away, (but) this is not the way to do it. Doc stamps is a tax to the seller upon the sale of their house based on the purchase price. The doc stamps need to go toward housing,” Dover said.

The proposal would direct about $2 million toward affordable housing, and lesser amounts to business innovation programs, military support, grant-seeking, behavioral health and health centers.

Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh objected that using the documentary stamp tax to fund such programs is disingenuous budgeting.

“This is a systemic issue that we are trying -- or this administration is trying -- to fund government by saying that they have lowered government's general fund spending, lower income taxes, but they are still funding things fully because they are putting it through fees,” Cavanaugh said.

Nevertheless, senators voted 27-10 first round approval of the bill. Sen. Mike McDonnell, it’s chief sponsor, said he’s open to negotiating changes before the bill reaches the next round of debate.