17 teachers sue South Colonie school district over bathroom camera

Seventeen teachers are now suing the South Colonie Central School District and the former employee who was convicted of placing a hidden camera in one of the school’s bathrooms.

There are 17 identical lawsuits that all claim Patrick Morgan disguised a camera as a phone charger, and put it in a bathroom at Sand Creek Middle School.

The bathroom was used by male and female faculty members, and disabled students.

The staff members were told in February they were secretly being filmed.

Morgan pleaded guilty to felony charges earlier this month.

The lawsuits were filed this week. In part, each one claims, faculty members were “being recorded while engaged in some of the most sensitive and private activities of daily living.”

The law firm DeGraff, Foy, and Kunz, representing those faculty members, said, “The facts in the case are clear. We look forward to a speedy resolution so that the injured staff can recover from these devastating invasions of privacy.”

The lawsuits also state Morgan had a history at Sand Creek Middle School, but the district still did nothing to protect its employees. The lawsuit says Morgan, “had been subject to disciplinary action and was known by the district to have previously engaged in inappropriate conduct.”

NewsChannel 13 does not know exactly what that conduct was, but the plaintiffs say the school district, “knew or should have known with the exercise of reasonable care that Morgan had placed video recording devices in the co-ed bathroom at the school, making it unfit and unsafe for use by individuals…which created a hostile work environment.”