Less than a week after the principal of a Florida charter school was awarded $155 million by a jury over her 2006 firing, a judge struck down the decision, the Miami Herald reported.
Katherine Murphy, who was fired from Aventura City Excellence School in Aventura, Fla., in 2006, later filed suit against Aventura City Manager Eric Soroka, who, together with city agencies and Charter Schools USA, a charter-management organization, run operations at the school. She accused them of breach of contract, conspiracy, and inflicting emotional distress.
The most controversial part of the case was the allegation that Ms. Murphy took a bribe to enroll a student at City Excellence who was not at the top of the waiting list to get into the school.
The company and the city said they would challenge that decision, but, meanwhile, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Rosa Rodriguez overturned the award.
According to a document from Aventura, the charter school’s operating budget is about $7.7 million.
