Suit: East Hampton private school bullied student into unenrolling
In a lawsuit, Hayden Soloviev alleges he was bullied into unenrolling from East Hampton's Ross School. Credit: Family photo
An East Hampton billionaire alleges in a $10 million lawsuit that his son was threatened, yelled at, and eventually bullied into unenrolling from his private school after complaining about teacher-chaperones leading students in a whiskey toast on a trip to a South American glacier.
"What happens on the glacier stays on the glacier" was allegedly the toast made by a teacher-chaperone from East Hampton's Ross School while on the trip with students last March, according to the lawsuit, which names the school's headmaster and teacher-chaperones as defendants. All of the students were underage on the trip to Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay, according to the suit, filed by Stefan Soloviev, and his son, Hayden Soloviev, who was 17 and a high school junior during the trip.
In an email, the school headmaster, William J. O’Hearn III, said the lawsuit’s claims were meritless.
"Far from being ‘forced to unenroll’ at the Ross School, Hayden Solviev and his father freely elected to have him attend East Hampton High School for his senior year," O'Hearn wrote in the email. "We understand that Hayden intends to begin college in the fall, and we wish him every continued success."
Stefan Soloviev, of East Hampton, filed the lawsuit against the Ross School along with his son, Hayden. Credit: Bloomberg/Michael Ciaglo
The school, located on about 63 acres, enrolls 386 students, including about 75 boarders, O'Hearn said. Hayden Soloviev didn’t live on campus, said Susan Peters, a spokeswoman for his family's attorney.
Annual tuition at the school is $44,910 for day students, the lawsuit said.
Stefan Soloviev is heir to a $4.7 billion real estate fortune, according to a 2019 article in Bloomberg News, which called him a "self-taught expert on dry-land agriculture" who is also America’s 31st-largest land owner. He is the son of the Manhattan real estate mogul Sheldon H. Solow, who died in November at 92. (Stefan uses the family’s surname as it was spelled before being Anglicized at Ellis Island.)
Hayden Soloviev had attended the Ross School for the sixth, seventh, ninth, 10th and 11th grades, Peters said. She declined to make the family available for comment.
Toasting the completion of a glacier tour in Patagonia — the sparsely populated region at South America’s tip shared by Argentina and Chile — is a tradition of sorts, with whiskey cooled by ice hewed from the glacier. Hayden Soloviev didn't participate, the suit said.
Harassment by school personnel began two days after the toast, the lawsuit alleges. Teachers entered Soloviev's hotel room, the suit continued, and one "demanded that Hayden turn over control" of a school-approved Instagram project, and "threatened to give Hayden failing grades in their respective classes if Hayden did not comply, which out of fear for his safety, he did."
The headmaster of the Ross School in East Hampton said the lawsuit is meritless. Credit: Stephanie Craig
Glenn H. Spiegel, the attorney who filed the suit Tuesday at State Supreme Court in Suffolk County, said nothing had precipitated the teachers barging in.
After Hayden Soloviev complained again, suggesting school higher-ups get involved, the account was returned to his control, the suit said. But after another incident days later with the same teacher berating the teen, the suit said, Soloviev called his father and arranged to fly home early. When the family complained to the school, Soloviev was removed from the teacher’s class, and put into a section with just one other student, remotely, during the coronavirus pandemic, according to the lawsuit.
And when the time came to re-enroll for senior year, the young man "felt unsafe" returning in person because the school "swept it under the rug and refused to tell Hayden or his family" the results of a requested investigation, Spiegel said — and he unenrolled.
The suit claims breach of trust and of contract, unjust enrichment, negligent hiring and infliction of emotional distress, among other causes of action. Spiegel said the family intends to donate any proceeds to charity, minus their legal fees, costs for the trip and other expenses.
"This is not a case about the money," Spiegel said. "It’s about holding the guilty parties accountable for their conduct and ensuring that this does not happen again to other students."
Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.
