A civil lawsuit arising from a 2019 hazing incident in Lehighton Area School District has been settled.

District officials disclosed the resolution Monday in a brief prepared statement read at the close of a workshop meeting.

“The district insurance carrier unilaterally reached a settlement with the plaintiffs, which does resolve that case,” Superintendent Jason Moser read from the statement.

The terms of the settlement were not disclosed.

The case had its roots in December 2019, when hazing allegations at the middle school became public and triggered simultaneous investigations by the district and the Lehighton Borough Police Department.

The district said at the time that school police and borough police were both contacted immediately after administration was notified of the incident, and that an internal investigation was underway.

Parents of four students filed suit in Carbon County Court in 2022. According to the complaint, three 14-year-old male students and a 15-year-old male student were left unsupervised before middle school football practice, during which time other team members hazed, bullied and physically and sexually assaulted the seventh-grade players. The complaint alleged the abuse included sodomy involving a broomstick and that several other players placed their buttocks and genitalia on the faces of the four students.

The lawsuit named the district and two middle school football coaches, Jason Muffley and Jacen Nalesnik. Parents alleged the coaches were aware of the culture and “failed to correct” it. According to the complaint, one of the students alerted the coaches to the acts of violence, and the coaches told team members to “stop the horseplay.”

Attorney Slade McLaughlin, representing the families, wrote in the complaint that “while the students were alone in the field house, members of the team hazed, bullied and physically and sexually assaulted seventh-grade team members, including the four students involved in the lawsuit.”

The district had initially sought to have the lawsuit dismissed. Attorneys for the district and the coaches argued that only the principal or school board could discipline students and that any alleged sexual abuse would not have been “reasonably foreseeable” to the coaches based on visible bruising, given that football is a contact sport.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs called that argument “too disingenuous to warrant a response,” writing that the fact notice was provided to two school district employees rather than the superintendent was “not a reason to dismiss the action.”

As recently as June 2025, board President Joy Beers cited the hazing case while urging the board to hire outside special counsel to investigate complaints brought to the board’s attention.

“Let’s use the hazing situation as an example,” Beers said. “Is it appropriate that parents in the district need to use their own money to sue the district and force an investigation that maybe should have been handled internally?”

Monday’s statement was followed by brief unscripted remarks expressing regret.

“We certainly hope that the victims in that situation have found resolution to the matter as well, and are able to rightfully move forward,” Moser said, “and obviously offer an apology to what happened during those events, on behalf of the district.”