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Case marks second legal action taken against the board this year.

LAFAYETTE — The mother of a child who was left sleeping on a bus for more than three hours after the driver finished his route has filed a lawsuit against the Lafayette Parish School Board.

It is the second lawsuit filed this year involving bus incidents.

The case involves a 6-year-old Ridge Elementary student, Jamichael Harrison, who was sleeping when the driver dropped other students off at the school on the morning of Feb. 20.

According to the lawsuit, the child was locked on the bus for three and half hours as it sat at the driver's home after he finished the morning route. The child was found by another driver.

The child's mother, Chrisilla Harrison, says in the lawsuit that her son was traumatized by the incident and has suffered speech problems since the incident.

The lawsuit, filed this week in state court, seeks unspecified damages for fear, humiliation and mental anguish.

School system authorities have not identified the driver but have said they were investigating the case. The driver is listed in the lawsuit as John Doe.

School Superintendent James Easton did not return calls seeking comment.

The parents of a 5-year-old S. J. Montgomery Elementary School student filed a lawsuit in June against the school board, alleging that a teacher told their son he had to walk because he missed the bus.

An off-duty police officer picked the child up about a quarter mile from the school, after the boy had crossed Congress Street and was making his way to the day care center where the bus would have normally taken him.

Easton has said that the school system investigated the case and determined that the teacher did not tell the student he had to walk.