NL court reverses damage award for misreading student term paper.

ST. JOHN'S -- Memorial University will not have to pay $800,000 for negligence to a former student who was investigated because of suspicion of child abuse, resulting from a misreading of a term paper. The appeals division of the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador reversed a civil court jury decision.

The course of events began in 1994 when social work professor Leslie Bella misinterpreted a paper on child abuse written by Wanda Young, a student with aspirations to become a social worker. The appendix included a case study that Bella understood the term paper to be a "cry for help" from a child abuser. After consultation with William Rowe, then director of the social work faculty, Wanda Young was reported to child welfare authorities on the suspicion that she could be abusing children.

For two years police investigated, including questioning of parents for whom Young had been a baby sitter. At the end of two years she was asked to explain the term paper including the appendix which was drawn from a text book. No basis for the suspicions of child abuse were found. Young later launched a law suit against the University, Bella and Rowe claiming loss of reputation and loss of earnings that she would have had as a social worker, even though she had never been admitted to the School of Social Work. The university argued that she was unlikely to be admitted to the social work program. The provincial supreme court jury awarded her $839,000.

The University appealed the ruling and the appeal court found that Bella and Rowe had acted in good faith and did what was required of them under the Child Welfare Act. All of the judges were critical of the way the case was managed by child welfare.

The three appeal judges were not unanimous in their decision to reverse the lower court decision and Wanda Young is expected to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.