Appeals court revives school abuse lawsuit under Child Victims Act

A state appeals court has revived a lawsuit against an Erie County school district accused of negligence by a former student who claims a teacher sexually abused him decades ago.

The plaintiff, identified as R.L. in court papers, filed the lawsuit under the Child Victims Act, alleging that he was sexually abused by a middle school math teacher while he was a student in the Holland Central School District in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

R.L. alleged that, on at least three separate occasions, the teacher had him stay after school, walked with him to the boys’ locker room, and then sexually abused him.

In October 2023, state Supreme Court Justice Deborah A. Chimes granted a defense motion for summary judgment, dismissing the complaint against the school district for negligent supervision while acting in loco parentis, and for negligent supervision and retention of the teacher.

The Appellate Division of state Supreme Court, Fourth Department, unanimously reversed Chimes and reinstated the complaint.

“We agree with plaintiff that Supreme Court erred in granting that part of defendant’s motion seeking summary judgment dismissing the complaint,” the Fourth Department panel wrote.

A school district has the duty to exercise the same degree of care and supervision over students under its control as a reasonably prudent parent would exercise under the same circumstances, the court wrote.

The standard for determining whether the duty was breached is whether a parent of ordinary prudence placed in an identical situation and armed with the same information would have provided greater supervision, according to the decision.

“Prior knowledge of an individual’s propensity to engage in criminal conduct is not required to establish a cause of action for the negligent supervision of a student,” the court wrote.

“Even without actual or constructive notice of an individual’s criminal propensity, a school district may be held liable for an injury that is the reasonably foreseeable consequence of circumstances it created by its inaction,” the court wrote.

The court concluded that the school district’s own submissions raised a triable issue of fact over whether the teacher’s sexual abuse of the plaintiff was a reasonably foreseeable consequence of the failure of the district and its employees to prevent the teacher from routinely touching other male students inappropriately before, or contemporaneous with the plaintiff’s dates of abuse.

“Defendant’s own submissions raise a triable issue of fact whether the teacher’s conduct was so open and prevalent that a reasonable person would have been on notice to protect against the injury-causing conduct,” the court wrote.

“We further agree with plaintiff that the court erred in granting that part of defendant’s motion seeking summary judgment dismissing the complaint,” the panel wrote.

To establish a claim of negligent supervision and retention of an employee, a plaintiff must show that the employer knew or should have known of the employee’s propensity for the conduct which caused the injury, according to the decision.

The employer’s negligence lies in having placed the employee in a position to cause foreseeable harm which would have been spared the injured party had the employer taken reasonable care in making decisions respecting the supervision and retention of the employee,, the court found.

“Viewing the evidence in the appropriate light, we conclude that defendant’s own submissions raise a triable issue of fact whether defendant should have known about the teacher’s propensity to engage in sexual abuse of male students while spending time alone with them on school grounds and elsewhere,” the court wrote.

The defendant district submitted an excerpt of the deposition of another male student who testified about an incident in which a gym teacher walked into the boys’ locker room to find the teacher and the other male student alone in the shower area just after the teacher had sexually abused the other male student.

The defense submissions also included evidence that the teacher was repeatedly having R.L. stay after school and taking him into the boys’ locker room for no legitimate reason while other school employees were aware that the teacher frequently drove male students off campus during school hours and babysat at least one male student overnight.

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