She Asked a School Employee If the Food Contained Nuts. She Was Told No. She Was Wrong — and She Died.

Kayleen Savonn Brown was 17 years old, a senior at Atlantic Coast High School in Jacksonville, Florida. She was weeks away from prom. She had plans to start her first job and attend Florida State College at Jacksonville, followed by the University of Central Florida.

On April 27, 2023, Kayleen was attending an after-school activity meeting on campus. Food had been set out for the students. Among the items was baklava — a flaky pastry dessert layered with chopped nuts and sweetened with syrup. Kayleen had never had baklava before. She did not know it contained nuts. So she did what anyone with a food allergy is supposed to do: she asked.

She turned to a school employee and asked directly whether the baklava contained nuts. She was told that it did not. She ate it.

It contained pistachios. Kayleen quickly discovered this and told a school employee she had eaten nuts and was beginning to feel symptoms. What happened next would define the lawsuit that followed.

She was not taken to the school nurse. Emergency services were not called. No one followed the Food Allergy Management and Prevention Plan that Kayleen's family and the Duval County Public Schools district had jointly created — a documented plan that required staff to recognize an allergic reaction, administer epinephrine, and not allow Kayleen to leave campus alone.

Instead, she was allowed to leave school by herself to go to a nearby pharmacy to get Benadryl.

She made it to the pharmacy. Her symptoms worsened rapidly. She went into anaphylaxis and cardiac arrest in the parking lot. She was rushed to the hospital. She fell into a coma. Three days later, on April 30, 2023, Kayleen Brown died.

The Father's Question That Became the Center of the Lawsuit

"Why did she leave school? Or why was she allowed to leave school if the teacher was aware that she was having an allergic reaction? My first thing would be like — why wasn't 911 called?"

Those words came from Steven Brown, Kayleen's father, speaking to local news station News4JAX after filing a wrongful death lawsuit against the Duval County School Board in July 2024. They are not complicated legal questions. They are the questions any parent would ask. And they have answers — answers that the lawsuit documented in detail.

The Duval County Public Schools district had a Food Allergy Management and Prevention Plan on file specifically for Kayleen. It was not a general policy. It was a plan created for her, by name, with her specific allergy documented and protocols for her specific situation. That plan required staff to:

▸  Recognize and report signs of an allergic reaction in Kayleen

▸  Administer epinephrine when symptoms appeared

▸  Contact emergency services

▸  Not allow Kayleen to walk alone or leave the building without medical clearance

None of these steps were followed. Staff knew she had eaten nuts. Staff knew she was experiencing symptoms. And staff let her drive herself to a pharmacy.

"There was a plan. The school knew about her allergy. The plan said exactly what to do. And when the moment came, none of it happened. That is not an accident — that is institutional failure. And Florida law holds institutions accountable for that failure."

The Lawsuit and the Settlement

Attorney Ted Pina filed the wrongful death lawsuit on behalf of Steven Brown and Kayleen's estate on July 2, 2024. The complaint accused Duval County Public Schools of negligence for failing to warn Kayleen that the baklava contained nuts, failing to train staff on food allergy procedures, and failing to follow the emergency action plan that had been created specifically to protect her.

The lawsuit sought damages in excess of $50,000, covering Kayleen's medical and funeral expenses, her lost future income, and the suffering endured by her family. A jury trial was demanded.

The case moved quickly to mediation. On March 11, 2025, the parties met and reached a settlement. The Duval County School Board agreed to resolve the case. The financial terms were not disclosed. Florida law caps tort claims against municipalities at $200,000 per person or $300,000 per occurrence for personal injuries — a limitation that affected the family's potential recovery but did not diminish the significance of the outcome.

"The Duval School Board was interested in mediating the case and so we got it scheduled as quickly as I could," attorney Pina said. For the family, the settlement brought legal closure — even as the loss of Kayleen remains something no amount of money can repair.

Why This Case Matters Beyond One Family

Kayleen's story is not unique. Schools across Florida and the United States are required to have food allergy management plans for students with documented allergies. These plans exist because anaphylaxis can escalate from first symptoms to cardiac arrest in minutes — and every minute of delay in administering epinephrine and calling 911 reduces the chance of survival.

What made Kayleen's case legally actionable was the combination of two failures: the initial failure to correctly identify the allergen content of food being served to a student with a known allergy, and the catastrophic failure to respond appropriately when she reported symptoms. Either one alone would have been serious. Together, they were fatal.

For parents of children with food allergies in Florida schools, this case underscores several critical points:

▸  Your child's school is legally required to maintain and follow an individualized Food Allergy Management and Prevention Plan — ask for a copy and review it every year

▸  School staff must be trained to recognize anaphylaxis and administer epinephrine — confirm this training has actually occurred, not just been documented on paper

▸  If your child has a reaction at school and staff fails to follow the emergency action plan, the school district may be liable for the consequences

▸  Florida municipalities can be sued for negligence when they fail to protect students in their care — the tort claim cap limits recovery but does not bar it

What Florida Law Requires of Schools

Florida's food allergy laws require public schools to permit students to self-carry and self-administer epinephrine auto-injectors. Schools are also permitted to maintain a stock supply of epinephrine for emergency use. Staff with designated responsibilities are required to receive training on recognizing allergic reactions and administering epinephrine.

But having a policy and following a policy are two different things. When the gap between the written plan and the real-world response costs a student her life, the family has the right to pursue accountability — and to use that pursuit, as Kayleen's father said, to try to prevent the same thing from happening to someone else's child.

"I try to keep it together as best I can to kind of give Kayleen's story to help," Steven Brown said. That is what his daughter's case has done — and what every family who pursues accountability in the face of institutional failure makes possible.

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If you or someone you love has been harmed by a food allergy failure at a restaurant, school, or food business in Florida, Consumer Rights Law, PLLC wants to hear from you. Consultations are free and we work on contingency — you pay nothing unless we win. Call (786) 360-7697 or visit consumerrights.law.

Consumer Rights Law, PLLC — Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes. This content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice or create an attorney-client relationship.