Former Los Angeles Lakers star and coach Byron Scott is scheduled to face a civil trial next month over allegations that he sexually assaulted a 15-year-old student at a private school in 1987, while Campbell Hall has separately reached a confidential settlement with the woman who brought the lawsuit.
The trial against Scott is scheduled to begin September 8 in Los Angeles County Superior Court in Van Nuys. The accuser, Hayley Dylan, is seeking unspecified economic and non-economic damages. Her claims against Campbell Hall, the Studio City school where the alleged incident occurred, have been settled, although the amount of that settlement remains under seal until the case against Scott concludes.
According to Dylan’s complaint, she was attending summer school at Campbell Hall in 1987 when several Lakers players visited the campus to film an instructional basketball video. She alleges that Scott, who was 26 at the time, took her away from the group and sexually assaulted her in a janitor’s closet inside the school gym. The lawsuit includes claims of sexual battery and false imprisonment.
Scott has denied that he knowingly engaged in sexual contact with a minor. His attorneys have said he believed Dylan was at least 18 years old and part of the video production crew rather than a Campbell Hall student. Scott has acknowledged that sexual contact occurred but disputes Dylan’s account of the circumstances and his knowledge of her age.
Campbell Hall had previously sought to remove itself from the lawsuit, but a judge rejected that effort in January. Judge Lee S. Arian ruled that the school had a responsibility to protect students from foreseeable harm while they were on campus and pointed to evidence suggesting Dylan’s whereabouts were not properly monitored during the event.
Dylan filed the lawsuit in December 2022 under California’s Child Victims Act, which temporarily reopened a window for certain previously time-barred childhood sexual abuse claims. The law allowed cases involving decades-old allegations to be brought forward despite the passage of the normal statute of limitations.
The school’s settlement does not resolve Dylan’s claims against Scott. It instead removes Campbell Hall from the remaining dispute while leaving Scott as the defendant heading into trial. His attorneys have argued that the amount paid by the school should affect any damages a jury might ultimately award against him, while Dylan’s legal team has disputed how much of an offset would legally apply.
Scott, now 65, spent 11 of his 14 NBA seasons with the Lakers and won three championships with the franchise during the Showtime era. He later coached five NBA teams, including the Lakers from 2014 to 2016.
