Suit by parents of electrocuted teen fails on appeal

ATLANTA - A federal appeals court has upheld a lower court ruling that rejected a lawsuit filed by the parents of a Franklin County teenager who was electrocuted during a high school science demonstration. <br> <br> A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday that actions by Franklin County High School teacher Paul E. Brown and school officials did not violate the constitutional rights of 17-year-old Jeremiah Nix. <br> <br> Nix died five years ago after he was shocked in an electromechanical class measuring the voltage on a wire. <br> <br> Brown had warned his students not to touch the wire, but it was established that students would sometimes deliberately touch it and shock themselves or one another. <br> <br> Nix&#39;s parents sued, claiming that the actions of the defendants ``were particularly arbitrary, reckless, and deliberately indifferent.&#39;&#39; <br> <br> The appeals court said that even if that was true, there were no grounds for a federal lawsuit. <br> <br> ``The conditions in the electromechanical course, while truly unfortunate, do not rise to the level of an affront of constitutional dimensions,&#39;&#39; said the opinion written by District Judge Louis H. Pollak of Pennsylvania. <br> <br> Also on the panel were the 11th Circuit&#39;s chief judge, R. Lanier Anderson III, and Circuit Judge Ed Carnes.