The Court’s opinion affirms the special relationship between school district employees and students, giving rise to an affirmative duty on district employees to protect students from foreseeable harm and allowing vicarious liability on the district for the negligence of its employees in this regard. However, the opinion leaves unanswered several significant questions concerning the imposition of liability against school districts when, as a result of their negligence, a student is sexually abused by a teacher or other district employee. This article explores those unanswered questions. A quitclaim deed California form is a special type of deed used to transfer real estate without making guarantees about title to the property.
Through his guardian ad litem, plaintiff CA. alleged that while he was a student at Golden Valley High School in the William S. Hart Union High School District, he was subjected to sexual harassment and abuse by Roselyn Hubbell, the head guidance counselor at his school. Plaintiff was 14 to 15 years old at the time of the harassment and abuse. He was assigned to Hubbell for school counseling. Representing that she wished to help him do well at school, Hubbell began to spend many hours with the plaintiff both on and off the high school premises and to drive him home from school each day. Exploiting her position of authority and trust, Hubbell engaged in sexual activities with the plaintiff, including oral sex and intercourse. As a result of the abuse, the plaintiff suffered emotional distress, anxiety, nervousness, and fear.
The trial court sustained the district’s demurrer and, over a vigorous dissent by Presiding Justice Milano, the Court of Appeal affirmed. Plaintiff petitioned the Supreme Court for review which the Court granted. The Supreme Court then reversed. “We conclude plaintiff’s theory of vicarious liability for negligent hiring, retention, and supervision is a legally viable one. Ample case authority establishes that school personnel owes students under their supervision a protective duty of ordinary care, for breach of which the school district may be held vicariously liable.”
In a unanimous opinion, Justice Werdegar, writing for the Court, explained: “a school district and its employees have a special relationship with the district’s pupils, a relationship arising from the mandatory character of school attendance and the comprehensive control over students exercised by school personnel, ‘analogous in many ways to the relationship between parents and their children.’The Court continued;
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