A federal judge will allow most of a lawsuit that alleges the Loyalsock Township School District failed to protect a basketball player from a former girls’ basketball coach to proceed.

U.S. Middle District Judge Matthew W. Brann, in a memorandum opinion released this week, found most of the facts as true and ripe for disposition.

In 2013, Jane Doe — then a 13-year-old seventh grade student at Loyalsock Middle School and member of the Middle School girls’ basketball team — first met Kelli Vassallo, the basketball team’s assistant coach.

Hired by Loyalsock Township School District some years prior, Vassallo was 33 years old. Despite the age difference, Doe and Vassallo became very close.

“The harm here is not in dispute: a Loyalsock Middle School basketball coach sexually abused Jane Doe in 2013 and 2014,” Brann wrote.

“The primary question before the Court is whether this abuse was foreseeable,” Brann stated.

“Because Jane Doe pleads facts that, taken together and accepted as true, demonstrate the School District’s actual knowledge of the risk of abuse, most of her claims may proceed,” Brann wrote.

Brann’s order noted the defendants’ motion to dismiss (negligence), negligent

infliction of distress, negligent failure to rescue, negligent failure to warn, and negligence per se — denied.

Accordingly, the defendants’ motion to dismiss vicarious liability and intentional infliction of emotional distress is granted with prejudice.

Doe also was not the first student this coach groomed and then victimized, according to the suit.

In July 2021, Doe initiated the suit. She filed the eight-count complaint against the school district and 10 unidentified school district administrators and other agents, alleging a violation of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 26 (Count I), vicarious liability (Count II), negligence (Count III), negligent infliction of emotional distress (Count IV), intentional infliction of emotional distress (Count V), negligent failure to rescue (Count VI), negligent failure to warn (Count VII), and negligence per se for violations of thePennsylvania Child Protective Services Law and Educator Discipline Act.

Loyalsock moved to dismiss the complaint on Oct. 1, 2021.

Vassallo was sentenced in 2018 to one year less a day to two years less a day followed by 10 years’ probation. She must register as a sexual offender for 25 years.