Judge Rules Bullying Case Demands "Duty Of Care For School Districts
Bullying Case Brief Released
Kris Olson: July 16, 2024
Judge: "High school had duty of care to student at risk of suicide, SJC’s ‘Nguyen’ decision applied to younger age group. Public schools owe a duty of care to students at foreseeable risk of suicide, a federal judge has ruled, importing the reasoning from a 2018 Supreme Judicial Court case involving universities into the K-12 context."
In Doe v. City of Northampton, the plaintiff is the mother of a 16-year-old girl who died by suicide on Jan. 30, 2020. The defendant city moved to dismiss the nine-count complaint in its entirety for failing to state a claim upon which relief may be granted.
The defendant argued that a magistrate judge who was asked to issue a recommendation had created a new duty of care between a student at foreseeable risk of suicide and a public school, which was not recognized by Massachusetts law.
But U.S. District Court Judge Mark G. Mastroianni found instead that Magistrate Judge Katherine A. Robertson had “engaged in a thorough analysis of the closest analogous precedent,” the SJC’s 2018 decision in Nguyen v. Mass. Inst. of Tech.
In Nguyen, the SJC recognized the existence of a duty to a 25-year-old graduate student, despite concluding the doctrine of “in loco parentis” no longer described the university-student relationship.
High school students are younger, heightening the SJC’s concerns regarding “immaturity and the need for protection,” and the doctrine of “in loco parentis” still applies, Mastroianni noted.
“Thus, the concerns animating the SJC’s reasoning in Nguyen are not diminished when applied in the context of public schools, but rather they are heightened by the greater level of immaturity and deeper degree of emotional vulnerability inherent in K-12 students,” Mastroianni wrote.
He found support for that proposition in an Appeals Court decision from last year, Paradis v. Frost, in which the court wrote that the argument that the SJC’s Nguyen holding should extend to public schools “has some force,” even as it found that the plaintiff’s suit was barred by sovereign immunity.
The 22-page decision in Northampton is Lawyers Weekly No. 02-305-24.
A longstanding duty:
One of the plaintiff’s attorneys, Laura D. Mangini of Springfield, said that while the extension of Ngyuen to the high school setting may have been novel, she did not believe Mastroianni’s decision changes the duty schools have had for decades.
Laura D. Mangini, "The school has always had a duty to protect kids that are within its care,” she said. “What is happening now with bullying and harassment and suicides is that society is understanding that suicide is a foreseeable consequence of these actions.”
What the court in Northampton and other courts around the country are focused on is whether the school had actual notice that the bullying the student was being subjected to was causing suicidal tendencies, she said.
“Unfortunately, my client’s daughter had had a previous suicide attempt — actually, two prior suicide attempts — the school year before, in which she specifically stated, ‘There’s no reason for me to go to school. I don’t want to live because of the bullying,’ and the school knew about that,” she said.
Mangini said she expects the Nguyen issue will resurface at the summary judgment stage, with the defendant arguing that the plaintiff did not meet her burden to show that the city breached its duty or that the duty should not apply because it is a public school rather than a private university.
But Mangini said she believes Mastroianni correctly concluded that the rationale for the holding in Nguyen should apply even more with younger students. Nor does she think the paying of tuition to a private college is an operative fact.
"I don’t think the school’s duty is just a contractual issue, depending on whether or not you can afford to pay for safety,” she said. “That would be ludicrous.”
The plaintiff’s attorney in Nguyen, Jeffrey S. Beeler of Framingham, said he was heartened to see the judge take a position that the Appeals Court had “side stepped” last year in Paradis, a case in which he also represented the plaintiff.
Beeler said he was particularly pleased with the reaffirmation of §40(b)(5) of the Restatement (Third) Torts: Liability for Physical and Emotional Harm, which was cited in Nguyen as the basis for the defendant’s duty of care.
“It’s always good, having fought in Nguyen and having lost the battle but won the war on the duty of care, to see the foreseeability standard properly applied in a manner that enhances student safety,” he said.
A former School Committee member, Beeler said he did not believe the Nguyen standard imposes an unmanageable burden on public school districts. What it requires schools to do is conduct the appropriate risk assessment and then communicate and coordinate with parents or guardians.
However, Braintree attorney Paige L. Tobin, a member of the Massachusetts Council of School Attorneys, said Mastroianni’s application of Nguyen to the high school setting ignores the reality that when universities accept students, the student usually lives on campus or in off-campus housing that is associated with or close to the university, and they do not have a parent or guardian to assist them. Universities also have health clinics with trained clinicians who can provide support to students, in a public school setting, that doesn’t exist,” she said.
Instead, public schools are designed to work very closely with families who bear the primary responsibility for the student’s health care and mental health care.
“The schools are not in the same position in terms of the ability and the resources to take care of public school students who are struggling emotionally and also who are not coming to school,” she said.
Michael J. Joyce: "This case is a very significant reminder to school leaders that you have to look at the definition of bullying and apply that definition
to a set of circumstances, rather than looking at how you may personally characterize them.
Beyond the Nguyen issue, Tobin said Mastroianni’s decision is a cautionary tale for school districts to make sure that the building administrators are writing safety plans that can be implemented and monitored.
“It’s more than just having a piece of paper,” she said. “It’s having a thoughtful plan that is focused on preventing conduct from reoccurring in a very thoughtful way that doesn’t necessarily involve school-based discipline.”
Council of School Attorneys President Michael J. Joyce of Norwood said it is unlikely Mastroianni’s decision will change what attorneys have already been advising schools.
“When kids engage in suicidal ideation, we want our schools to be responsive, and our administrators want [to be] responsive,” he said.
He did think, however, that Mastroianni helpfully reminded school leaders that they must look at the definition of “bullying” and not reflexively dismiss incidents as “peer conflict,” as is alleged in the Northampton case.
“This case is a very significant reminder to school leaders that you have to look at the definition of bullying and apply that definition to a set of circumstances, rather than looking at how you may personally characterize them,” he said.
Bullying ends in tragedy
N.M., a biracial student who suffered from anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder, began to be bullied by her peers during the summer of 2018, as she was transitioning from a charter school to Northampton High School.
In August of that year, her mother attended a meeting at the high school to discuss her daughter’s individual education plan, which provided that N.M. was to receive “instruction and support in identifying emotional responses that created barriers and challenges to her academic activities and social interactions with peers and adults.”
At the meeting, N.M.’s mother notified school officials about the bullying, which continued when she started ninth grade and eventually escalated to threats.
N.M. and her mother reported the threats to school officials. But the plaintiff alleges that high school employees did not comply with the school’s anti-bullying and anti-harassment policies.
Doe v. City of Northampton:
THE ISSUE: Should the Supreme Judicial Court’s holding in Nguyen v. Mass. Inst. of Tech. be applied in the public high school setting, imposing a duty of care to students at foreseeable risk of suicide?
DECISION: Yes (U.S. District Court)
LAWYERS: Robert A. DiTusa and Laura D. Mangini, of Alekman DiTusa, Springfield; Carmen L. Durso of Framingham (plaintiff)
Jeffrey J. Trapani of Pierce, Davis & Perritano, Boston (defense)
On March 26, 2019, N.M. stopped attending school because the constant bullying increased her anxiety and depression.
She attempted suicide in May 2019.
The Department of Children and Families investigated N.M.’s attempted suicide during which a school official allegedly denied that N.M. and her mother had told the school about bullying. The official reported that the school had determined that, rather than being bullied, N.M. was experiencing “peer on peer conflict,” and that N.M. was the aggressor during the incidents.
The bullying resumed when N.M. returned to school in September 2019. On Sept. 10, the school finally implemented a safety plan for her that provided an adult would supervise her throughout the school day to ensure her emotional and physical safety.
Notwithstanding the safety plan, the bullying, harassment and physical attacks continued, and N.M’s mother ultimately withdrew her after an incident on Nov. 19, 2019.
On Dec. 15, N.M. told her mother that it was unfair that bullying prevented her from attending school and that the school was not protecting her, according to the complaint.
On Jan. 30, 2020, N.M. broke down crying and told her mother that she did not understand why the school could not keep her safe. She took her own life later that day.
N.M.’s mother filed a nine-count civil complaint against the city of Northampton. While the magistrate recommended dismissing with prejudice several counts in the complaint, Robertson recommended denial of the motion to dismiss with respect to the plaintiff’s §1983 claim, the bulk of her Title VI claim, along with her retaliation and wrongful death claims.
Over the city’s partial objection, Mastroianni adopted Robertson’s recommendation.
‘Monell,’ immunity
Mastroianni agreed with Robertson that the plaintiff had adequately alleged that the city had “an unwritten policy to intentionally downgrade and misclassify bullying incidents as incidents of ‘peer on peer conflict,’” sufficient to support municipal liability under 42 U.S.C. §1983 using the standard the U.S. Supreme Court established in the 1978 case Monell v. Dep’t of Soc. Servs. of City of New York.
He cited at least nine individual allegations that supported the claim that the city’s policy or custom was “so well settled and widespread that policymakers had actual or constructive awareness” and that the policy or custom of misclassifying bullying led to N.M.’s death by subjecting her to relentless physical and emotional harm during school hours.
He added that the defendant’s attempt to distinguish the cases Robertson principally relied on was “not persuasive.”
Mastroianni also grappled with the issue of whether the city was immune from suit pursuant to G.L.c. 258, §10(j), which would be true unless an exception applied.
However, Mastroianni agreed with Robertson that §10(j)(1) applied because the safety and supervision plan for N.M. that school officials prepared constituted the type of “explicit and specific assurance” that implicates the immunity exception.
“When viewed in a light most favorable to Plaintiff, this suicide was a result, at least in part, of Defendant’s ineffective implementation of the Safety and Supervision Plan’s ‘explicit and specific’ assurance that N.M. would be protected from the physical and emotional harm caused by bullying, as well as from the foreseeable consequences of that bullying such as suicide.”
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