A former student at Hyde School, a character-focused private boarding school in Bath, is suing the school in federal court, alleging it subjected her and hundreds of other students to forced manual labor and emotional abuse.

The suit, filed by the Massachusetts firm Justice Law Collaborative and Maine-based Island Justice Law in the U.S. District Court of Maine, alleges that the school has violated human trafficking, forced labor and negligence laws — while making significant profits — and asks the court to immediately intervene, including by seizing all of the defendant’s assets.

The lawsuit names the head of the school, Laura Gauld, her husband, Executive Director Malcom Gauld, and several other members of the Gauld family as defendants. Hyde was founded in 1966 by Joseph Gauld, Malcom’s father, who died in 2023.

In a Friday letter to the Hyde community that was shared with the Press Herald, Dana McAvity, chair of the school’s board of governors, said the lawsuit’s claims “grossly mischaracterize Hyde’s policies and practices over time or are patently false.”

“Hyde vehemently denies these claims and intends to vigorously defend itself, its reputation, and the character education model that makes Hyde the special and effective school it is,” McAvity wrote.

The only named plaintiff in the lawsuit is Jessica Fuller, who attended Hyde in 2014 and 2015 and alleges she was physically restrained at the school and required to attend “attack therapy” under the threat of being forced to do manual labor as punishment.

But the attorneys are seeking class-action status, which would include anyone who was forced to do labor at the school since 2015, and say there are more than 100 students who fall into the class.

“This lawsuit seeks justice for the hundreds of students who were trafficked, abused and exploited by the Gauld family’s systematic child labor scheme operating under the false promise of character development and innovative education,” the complaint reads.

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The lawsuit also alleges that Hyde benefited from the labor of students, which was part of the school’s discipline system, and included shoveling snow, digging holes, building structures and landscaping, both on campus and at off-campus locations like a wilderness property in Eustis and on Seguin Island off the coast of Popham Beach in Sagadahoc County.

According to the complaint, Hyde staff threatened students with labor punishments for reporting medical conditions, asking for psychological help, running away or asking for medicine.

Other punishments included the loss of food privileges, or being sent to Eustis with inadequate food and shelter to do work on the property, the suit alleges. It also says that despite Hyde marketing itself as an academic institution, curriculum was “secondary to its labor and disciplinary systems.”

The suit also describes physical abuse of students including “being slammed into walls by Hyde staff, choked, grabbed, and pushed to the ground.” It alleges students were subjected to constant surveillance, isolation, public humiliation and attack therapy.

McAvity wrote that Hyde representatives have engaged with the plaintiffs’ attorneys with open minds, but that the claims in the suit are inflammatory and disturbing.

“The news you will hear may make you think that Hyde has skeletons, dark secrets now coming to light. But Hyde, as you know, has always been an open book, a place of extraordinary transparency,” McAvity wrote in her letter to the community. “We take seriously our obligation to investigate and, where appropriate, report to law enforcement. Contrary to the allegations made in the lawsuit, Hyde considers its obligation to protect students to be paramount.”

Hyde was founded on the estate of a Bath Iron Works founding family in 1966 with a focus on the unique potential in every student, according to Joseph Gauld. The school had a second boarding campus in Woodstock, Connecticut, from 1997 to 2019, and has had partner charter schools, including ones in New York and Orlando, Florida, that still operate today.

The Press Herald has been interviewing former Hyde students about their allegations of abuse and neglect at the school. Read our full story on Sunday.

Note: This story was updated at 7:30 a.m. to correct information about the Gauld family’s role in the lawsuit. They are the defendants.