A New Jersey school district can be held liable for the legal fees of a part-time school psychologist charged, and eventually cleared, of assaulting a recalcitrant student while helping remove him from a classroom, a state appeals court has ruled.

A two-judge Appellate Division panel in an unpublished ruling said that while the school psychologist, Kenneth Welsh, was not a full-time employee of the Hackettstown Board of Education, the board can be required to pay his counsel fees.