School District Possibly Liable for Unknown Sexual Abuse of Student by Teacher
When is a school district liable for the sexual abuse of a young student by her teacher? When does a duty arise, even if the school district isn’t aware of the sordid conduct? A new appellate ruling in a case about a 13-year old who was groomed, then sexually assaulted by her music teacher, clarifies the duty of school districts, and outlines what future student-plaintiffs will have to prove if they want to sue California school districts for the unknown actions of their teachers in the future.
In a unanimous opinion by a three-judge panel of Division Seven of the Second Appellate District of California, Associate Justice John L. Segal reversed the decision of Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Deirdre Hill, who had granted the Lawndale School District’s motion for summary judgment for negligence on November 30. At the same time, it granted summary adjudication to Lawndale on the cause of action it had disputed under the Child Abuse and Neglect Reporting Act (CANRA) for failing to report the teacher. The court said the school district could not report something about which it did not know.
“Jane Doe” was in the seventh grade in the Lawndale Elementary School District in Southeast Los Angeles County. She was enrolled in a band class during the day, then attended an afterschool band program taught by 26-year-old Jason Farr, who was not a regular teacher at her school during the day. The class, called Realizing Academic Potential (RAP), gave students a chance to practice their instruments and do their homework. RAP also met during summer sessions.
Like many sexual predators, Farr first encouraged Doe to enroll in RAP, then soon began to “groom” the young teen. The court’s opinion defines “grooming as “planning and deliberate behaviors to befriend and establish an emotional connection with a child to have the child lower and abandon whatever inhibitions the child might have against inappropriate sexual activities.” Farr had located Doe’s profile on social media and began corresponding. They soon began to talk on the phone. When he professed his “intimate feelings,” they began to meet in person, after school, in the school’s band room, where he taught the after school RAP program.
Their sexual activities continued when she started eighth grade and continued until spring when Doe’s father learned about them. Farr was arrested on March 14, 2017. He was charged with seven felonies, pleaded guilty to oral copulation of a person under 16, and was sentenced to 16 months in prison. He was initially a defendant in Doe’s suit against Lawndale but was dismissed.
In her lawsuit against the school district, Doe asserted two causes of action for negligence, one based on Farr’s hiring, supervision and retention, and the other on the negligent supervision of the student.
She also sued for breach of Lawndale’s mandatory duty to report suspected child abuse as required by the CANRA. Justice Segal said it was not exactly clear what the school district was arguing, but that it appeared to say it had no duty to protect Doe from sexual abuse by Farr because it had “no actual knowledge” of Farr’s behavior, of any similar behavior in his history, nor of a propensity by him to engage in this type of conduct. Lawndale also said Farr’s behavior was “ambiguous.”
Doe argued the school district did have a duty because of the “special relationship” they had with their students, which was ongoing and not “triggered” by actual knowledge. She said the issue was whether the school district “should have formed a suspicion of child abuse” and reported it. She supported her position with the deposition testimony of several students who had observed Farr and Doe flirting, touching, and even arguing. An expert witness said these types of interactions were “open and obvious examples of predatory behavior.” He said these “red flags” should have been noticed, and Lawndale’s failure to do so showed insufficient supervision. Lawndale called these claims irrelevant, inadmissible, vague and irrelevant.
The district court found that there was no triable issue of material fact because of Lawndale’s lack of knowledge about Farr’s behavior. This was the basis for its granting Lawndale’s motion for summary judgment. The appellate court disagreed, saying that the school district had a “duty to use due care, that (it) breached that duty, and that the breach was the proximate…cause of the resulting injury.” It found a special relationship between the school district and Doe who, as a vulnerable student, was dependent on the school to protect her welfare.
Next, Segal’s opinion detailed what must legally occur after a duty and a special relationship are found. The court outlined several factors that precedent said the jury should consider and said both the trial court and the district court erred in not considering these factors.
These are: foreseeability of harm to plaintiff; certainty of injury; closeness of the connection between defendant’s conduct and the injury; the moral blame of defendant’s conduct; the policy of preventing future harm, the extent of the burden to the defendant of imposing the duty, the consequences to the community of imposing the duty; and the availability, costs and prevalence of insurance for the risk. Segal concluded that the trial court and district courts erred when they did not consider these factors.
Segal explained, that these factors “do not weigh in favor of limiting school administrators’ duty to prevent sexual abuse to circumstances where administrators know a specific instructor previously engaged in sexual misconduct and where the misconduct is not ambiguous. Whether the measures the District (Lawndale) took to prevent sexual abuse of students and to supervise Farr and Doe were reasonable is a case-specific question of breach…And it is a question for the jury, not the court on summary judgment. “
Segal also outlined arguments precedents had cited that argued against placing so much responsibility and liability on schools. These include diverting needed funds from classrooms to cover liability, the possibility of discouraging one-on-one friendships and contacts between students and teachers, and the chance that unsubstantiated rumors might ruin a teacher’s career. They were not persuasive here.
The panel’s opinion turned next to the duty to report suspected sexual abuse under CABRA. Since all of Lawndale’s employees said they never witnessed any inappropriate behavior between Farr and Doe, the trial court said Lawndale met its burden of showing Doe could not objectively show a breach of a mandatory duty to report. Doe had argued this was a triable issue of fact. Segal then discussed whether employees of the Lawndale School District failed to discover facts that “a reasonable person in a like position should have discovered.” He cites law and concludes that under CANRA, “reasonable suspicion is based on the facts actually known to the mandated reporter.” Failure to report results in a misdemeanor by the reporter who has a duty to report.
Segal also points out that only students, and never teachers, observed Farr’s behavior with Doe and therefore granted Lawndale’s motion for summary adjudication of Doe’s cause of action for breach of the mandatory duty to report suspected child abuse.
