By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

BIRMINGHAM – Defendants have asked a U.S. District Court judge to rule in their favor and end a lawsuit brought against them after a longtime Alabaster teacher pleaded guilty in 2012 to sexually abusing more than 20 girls during his teaching tenure.

In January, attorneys for the Shelby County Board of Education and former School Board members Lee Doebler and Steve Martin requested federal District Court Judge Virginia Hopkins to issue a summary judgment in their favor, claiming the plaintiffs in the lawsuit do not have grounds to seek legal action against them.

The lawsuit was brought against Daniel Acker Jr. and the past and present members of the Shelby County Board of Education by one of Acker’s former students, Kristin Hurt, and six other unnamed plaintiffs. Acker was sentenced to 17 years in prison in May 2012 after he pleaded guilty to eight counts of sexually abusing underage girls during his more than 20-year teaching tenure in Alabaster.

Acker, who currently is in prison, taught at Thompson Elementary School, Creek View Elementary School and TIS, and was a school bus driver during his teaching tenure in Alabaster.

The lawsuit claims the “defendants failed to meet their obligations to protect Shelby County’s county school children,” and claimed “Acker’s position as a school teacher and a bus driver gave him ready access to scores of students over his nearly two decades of employment by the Shelby County School Board.”

After Hurt’s mother reported Acker sexually abused Hurt in 1991, Acker was placed on leave from Creek View Elementary, and a grand jury did not indict him on the charge.

In their motions, the School Board, Doebler and Martin claimed those who were serving on the board in 1991 made their decision to allow Acker to continue teaching based on evidence and testimony presented during a “lengthy hearing” in 1993.

Their motions also claim the victims Acker pleaded guilty to molesting between the 1993 hearing and his 2012 arrest did not notify any school system officials who had the authority to take disciplinary actions against Acker.

According to court documents, the defendants in the lawsuit have until Feb. 22 to supplement their motions for summary judgment, and the plaintiffs have until March 7 to file their responses. The defendants then have until March 21 to file any additional replies before Hopkins makes a decision on the motions.