Labor & Employment Law

School not liable when it passed off sexual assaulter to another school where student was assaulted.

The sad facts alleged in this case are that officials at School #1 knew one of its teachers had been sexually assaulting grade-schoolers, they did not report this, and instead they allowed the teacher to resign and get a new job at School #2.

Guess what? The teacher assaulted a student at School #2.

The student sued School #1 and its officials and lost. The 7th Circuit held that the student could get no legal help from either title IX or Illinois tort law.

Doe-2 v. McLean Cnty Unit Dist (7th Cir 01/22/2010)

Doe-2, a grade school student at Urbana school district, was sexually assaulted by a teacher. The teacher previously worked at McLean school district, where he had assaulted students. Doe-2 sued the McLean district and its officials, claiming its officials knew of the assaults, did not report them, and then allowed the teacher to resign and get a new job at Urbana. The 7th Circuit held that Doe-2 did not state a claim under Title IX or Illinois tort law.

(1) Doe-2 did not state a claim under Title IX. A student can recover damages from a school district for a teacher's sexual harassment, but only if the district had "substantial control over both the harasser and the context in which the known harassment occurs." Davis ex rel LaShonda D v. Monroe Cnty Bd of Educ, 526 US 629 (1999). Here, even if McLean officials knew of the risk of future assaults, they "lacked the requisite control over such harassment to incur Title IX liability" because they had no supervisory authority over the teacher after he ended his employment there.

(2) Doe-2 did not state a claim under Illinois tort law for willful and wanton misconduct for four reasons: (a) a person ordinarily has no duty to act affirmatively to protect another from criminal attack by a third person; (b) Illinois' child abuse reporting statute does not create any duty to the abused child when a person fails to report abuse; (c) McLean officials had no "special relationship" with Doe-2 that would trigger a legal duty to protect her; and (d) even though McLean officials may have foreseen a risk that the teacher would assault Urbana students, this did not create a duty to protect them, absent a special relationship.

Full post as published by Ross' Employment Law Blog on January 24, 2010 (boomark / email).