A Los Angeles mother has filed a damages claim against LAUSD after her 17-year-old son was beaten in class and plunged to his death, alleging years of ignored bullying and staff failures.
Lilia Nungaray took the mandatory first step toward suing the Los Angeles Unified School District on Oct. 15, weeks after her son Xavier Nungaray-Martinez died following a classroom assault at Benjamin Franklin High School in Highland Park.
The claim alleges district employees stood by while the senior was punched repeatedly in the face, failed to protect him after he fled, and left a dangerous campus condition that contributed to his death. The Post reported the filing and the family’s account of what happened on Sept. 30.
Xavier was beaten in a classroom while a teacher yelled for the students to stop. He then fled and went over a fourth-floor railing. He did not survive.
His mother says the district had warning signs long before that day, and still failed him.
According to the damages claim, school employees did not physically intervene once the assault began. They did not summon school police, security, or administrators. They did not separate the attacker from Xavier or secure his safety.
The filing states employees failed to “physically intervene to stop the assault once it began, rather than merely yelling at the students to stop.”
It also says no staff followed Xavier or rendered aid after he ran from the room. The claim alleges blows to his head left him dazed and disoriented, and that the terror of the attack sent him into a panic before he went over the railing.
“Despite that knowledge, LAUSD and its employees failed to take the steps necessary to protect XAVIER,”
the claim states.
Attorneys at Panish Shea Ravipudi LLP accuse the district of negligence, poor student supervision, and allowing a dangerous campus environment. The claim does not name a specific dollar figure. It seeks damages above California Superior Court’s minimum threshold of more than $35,000.
The filing also points to the fourth-floor railing itself, alleging a lack of adequate barriers created a dangerous condition on campus.
Nungaray’s claim describes more than one bad day. It alleges years of unchecked bullying at Franklin High, including a sophomore-year incident that brought Xavier and his mother into a meeting with administrators.
Officials partly blamed Xavier in that earlier episode, the claim says. The experience left the teenager afraid that reporting more abuse would get him punished instead of protected.
“A policy that tells administrators to be skeptical of students who report bullying is a policy that keeps students like XAVIER, who already feared that reporting would get him punished, from coming forward,”
the claim argues.
The Sept. 30 assault included a racial slur directed at Xavier, the filing says. Video appears to show another student hurling the n-word during the beating.
The claim accuses employees of violating California’s Safe Place to Learn Act, which requires school personnel to take immediate steps to intervene when they witness bullying or harassment, when it is safe to do so.
The family’s lawyers do not treat Xavier’s death as an isolated shock. The claim cites a Feb. 17 case at Reseda Charter High School, where a 12-year-old was struck in the head with a metal water bottle during a bullying incident, underwent emergency brain surgery, and died. That family filed a claim and sued LAUSD.
“LAUSD also knew, well before September 30, 2026, that student-on-student violence on its campuses can kill,”
the claim states.
Seven months after the Reseda death, Xavier was beaten in a Franklin classroom in front of a teacher, fled, and fell to his death, the filing says.
“If LAUSD had taken reasonable steps to protect XAVIER, he would not have been beaten on Sept. 30, 2026, would not have gone over the fourth-floor railing, and would still be alive today,”
the claim concludes.
The document also cites districtwide numbers. During the 2023-2024 school year, LAUSD recorded 6,620 reported episodes of fights and physical aggression, a 33 percent jump from the prior year. Nearly one in 10 students reported feeling physically unsafe on district campuses, according to figures included in the claim.
LAUSD removed campus police officers in 2021 after George Floyd’s death. The district replaced them with roving officers who cover multiple schools and respond when called.
Under the department’s 2026 policy manual, administrators can request help for assaults and major fights. Staff must call 911 first in life-threatening emergencies.
That model puts distance between a classroom fight and a uniformed response. In Xavier’s case, the claim says the adults in the room yelled and did not stop the beating, did not call for security as it unfolded, and did not keep the injured student safe after he fled.
A district that strips dedicated campus police and then watches fights climb is asking parents to trust a slower, thinner safety system. The claim says that system failed a 17-year-old senior in real time.
A LAUSD spokesperson declined to discuss the filing.
“Los Angeles Unified does not comment on pending or ongoing litigation,”
the spokesperson said.
LAPD’s Robbery-Homicide Division is still investigating Xavier’s death. Detectives “have not identified evidence establishing a connection between allegations of bullying and the student’s death,” the department has said.
Police sources previously told The Post that witnesses said Xavier may have started the fight. No arrests are described in the available account. The teacher who was present is not named in the claim. Neither is the other student involved in the assault.
Those investigative questions remain open. The mother’s claim does not wait on them. It focuses on what district employees did and did not do while a student was beaten in front of a teacher, and on a pattern of bullying she says the school never fixed.
Filing a damages claim is the required path before a lawsuit against a California public agency. Nungaray has taken that step. The district’s answer, so far, is silence on the litigation and a police investigation that has not tied bullying claims to the death.
Parents send their kids to school expecting adults to break up a beating, call for help, and keep a dazed teenager from a deadly fall. When a district drops campus police, logs thousands of fights, and still cannot protect a senior in his own classroom, the bill comes due, and a grieving mother is the one presenting it.
