Opinion
C. A. PC-2022-02220
07-22-2024
JOHN DOE 42 AND PARENT DOE 42 Plaintiffs, v. GREGORY BLASBALG, LISA HILDEBRAND, JENNIFER HOSKINS, JENNIFER LIMA, and JAKE MATHER, ALL IN THEIR OFFICIAL CAPACITIES AS MEMBERS OF NORTH KINGSTOWN SCHOOL COMMITTEE; JAMES LATHROP IN HIS OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS TOWN FINANCE DIRECTOR, FOR THE TOWN OF NORTH KINGSTOWN; PHILIP D. THORNTON; GERALD FOLEY; PHILIP AUGER; DENISE MANCIERI; KEITH KENYON; HOWARD (HOWIE) HAGUE; and JOHN AND JANE ROES 1-20 Defendants.
For Plaintiff: Timothy J. Conlon, Esq. Angelina H. Landi, Esq. Laura N. Nicholson, Esq. For Defendant: Rebecca T. Partington, Esq. Jeffrey M. DeSisto, Esq. Marc DeSisto, Esq. Mark T. Reynolds, Esq.
Providence County Superior Court
For Plaintiff: Timothy J. Conlon, Esq. Angelina H. Landi, Esq. Laura N. Nicholson, Esq.
For Defendant: Rebecca T. Partington, Esq. Jeffrey M. DeSisto, Esq. Marc DeSisto, Esq. Mark T. Reynolds, Esq.
DECISION
CARNES, J.
Before this Court for decision is a Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings regarding John Doe 42 ("John Doe") and Parent Doe 42's (collectively "Plaintiffs") Complaint against Defendants Keith Kenyon, Gerald Foley, and Dr. Philip D. Thornton (collectively "Defendants"). The case arises from an alleged incident where a school employee conducted intimate physical examinations, referred to as "fat testing" on John Doe and other students. Plaintiffs filed the instant Complaint alleging Defendants negligently supervised and trained the employee responsible for the alleged fat testing. Defendants' Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings seeks to dismiss Plaintiffs' claims, arguing that no duty exists because Defendants have not worked at the North Kingstown School Department or had supervisory control over the employee during the period of the alleged injuries to John Doe.
I Facts and Travel
The following facts are derived from Plaintiffs' First Amended Complaint. Around 1989, the North Kingstown School Department hired Aaron Thomas ("Thomas"), who became a basketball coach by 1993. See First Am. Compl. ¶¶ 29-30. During his tenure as a basketball coach, Thomas established a "body fat testing" program while under the supervision of the North Kingstown School Department and various school administrators See id. ¶ 32. Defendants held positions as some of these school administrators for varying lengths of time, including Defendant Gerald Foley ("Foley"), who was acting Principal of the North Kingstown High School from 1992 to 2010; Defendant Philip Thornton ("Thornton"), who was an Assistant School Superintendent and Superintendent for the North Kingstown School Department from 2007 to 2011; and Keith Kenyon ("Kenyon"), who was North Kingstown High School's Director of Athletics &Student Activities from 1985 to 2009. See id. ¶¶ 10-11, 14.
Plaintiffs allege that Thomas, until his termination in 2021, used his coaching position to obtain access to students within and without the school and conduct pretextual intimate physical "examinations" under the name of body fat testing that involved having children strip naked and touch them in inappropriate ways. See id. ¶ 32. Plaintiffs further allege that Thomas' inappropriate and unprofessional conduct continued without any meaningful supervision due to Defendants' repeated and routine practice of avoiding complaints by "resolving" such complaints so there was no formal process pursued or a record of a complaint. Id. ¶ 42.
John Doe was a minor student that was actively enrolled from 2014 through 2016 with North Kingstown High School. See id. ¶ 61. At some point in November of 2015, John Doe was touched inappropriately by Thomas during a fat testing examination in which he was asked to remove his clothing for the examination. See id. ¶¶ 64-65. In 2021, following an e-mail complaint of a former student against Thomas, the North Kingstown School Department retained an attorney to determine whether Thomas violated any of the rules, laws, or policies. See id. ¶ 44. In the report,the attorney documented that "for a sustained period of time during the course of his employment with the School District, Mr. Thomas may have violated the aforementioned School District polices[.]" Id. ¶ 45. The North Kingstown School Department also approached retired associate Justice Susan McGuirl to conduct a review of the investigations and reports concerning the allegations against Thomas for his fat testing program. See id. ¶ 53.
The Court notes that Plaintiffs have incorporated the report into their First Amended Complaint.
The Court notes that Justice McGuirl's report is incorporated into Plaintiffs' First Amended Complaint. See First Am. Compl. ¶¶ 52, 57.
Plaintiffs now bring negligent supervision and training claims against Defendants for their responsibility in creating and enabling an environment where Thomas was allowed to inappropriately touch and harm students through his "fat testing" examinations. See id. ¶¶ 32, 75
II Standard of Review
"A judgment on the pleadings under Rule 12(c) of the Superior Court Rules of Civil Procedure 'provides a trial court with the means of disposing of a case early in the litigation process when the material facts are not in dispute after the pleadings have been closed and only questions of law remain to be decided.'" Nugent v. State Public Defender's Office, 184 A.3d 703, 706 (R.I. 2018) (quoting Chase v. Nationwide Mutual Fire Insurance Company, 160 A.3d 970, 973 (R.I. 2017)). A Rule 12(c) motion for judgment on the pleadings utilizes the same test to review a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss. See id. Therefore, a judgment on the pleadings "may be granted only when it is established beyond a reasonable doubt that a party would not be entitled to relief from the defendant under any set of conceivable facts that could be proven in support of its claim." Id. at 706-07 (quoting Chase, 160 A.3d at 973).
III Analysis
Defendants advance several arguments in support of their Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings. Defendants argue that they owe no duty under a claim for negligent supervision or training to Plaintiffs because they were not employed by the school when John Doe attended North Kingstown High School or when the alleged injury occurred. Defs.' Mem. in Supp. of their Rule 12(c) Mot. for J. on the Pleadings (Defs.' Mem.) 1. Defendants further argue that the lapse of time in between their time employed by North Kingstown as school personnel and John Doe's injuries amounts to a superseding cause that breaks the causal connection in relation to proximate cause. See id. at 10. Lastly, upon supplemental briefing, Defendants argue that they cannot be held individually liable for Plaintiffs' claims of negligent supervision and training. See Defs.' Suppl. Mem. in Supp. of their Rule 12(c) Mot. for J. on the Pleadings (Defs.' Suppl. Mem.) 2.
In response, Plaintiffs argue that the Defendants are individually liable for claims of negligent supervision and training. Mem. in Supp. of Pls.' Obj. to Mot. of Defs.' for J. on the Pleadings (Pls.' Obj.) 2-7. In support, Plaintiffs cite to Doe v. McKenna, No. 94-7084, 1998 WL 269228, at *1 (R.I. Super. May 8, 1998), where a Rhode Island Superior Court justice found that a school superintendent could be held individually liable for a claim of negligent supervision. Plaintiffs further argue that the termination of Defendants' employment with the North Kingstown School Department does not break causation, and that Defendants owe a special duty to John Doe because of his status as a student. See Pls.' Obj. 18, 20.
A Duty
This Court is asked the question of whether a former school administrator holds a legal duty toward a plaintiff who has suffered harm due to the actions of an employee whom the administrator previously supervised. Specifically, the Court is asked to determine if Defendants have a duty of care to John Doe based on their former supervisory roles over the employee who committed the harmful act.
It is a fundamental principle of tort law that a '"defendant cannot be liable under a negligence theory unless the defendant owes a duty to the plaintiff."' Allen v. Sitrin, 315 A.3d 288, 292 (R.I. 2024) (quoting Benaski v. Weinberg, 899 A.2d 499, 502 (R.I. 2006)). The determination of "[w]hether a defendant is under a legal duty in a given case is a question of law." Brown v. Stanley, 84 A.3d 1157, 1162 (R.I. 2014) (internal quotation omitted). Rhode Island Courts do not have a '"set formula for finding [a] legal duty', and thus 'such a determination must be made on a case-by-case basis."' Flynn v. Nickerson Community Center, 177 A.3d 468, 477 (R.I. 2018) (quoting Wells v. Smith, 102 A.3d 650, 653 (R.I. 2014)). Consequently, courts engage in '"an ad hoc approach that turns on the particular facts and circumstances of a given case[.]"' Id. (quoting Gushlaw v. Milner, 42 A.3d 1245, 1256 (R.I. 2012)). In addition, "[t]he 'relationship between the parties' . . . [is also a consideration] in our duty analysis." Id.(internal quotation omitted).
First, it must be determined whether Defendants owed any special duty on the basis of a purported special relationship between them and John Doe. "[W]here special circumstances bring to the state's attention that an identifiable individual or a member of an identifiable group is at risk of harm, then a special duty of care is owed by the state." Gagnon v. State, 570 A.2d 656, 659 (R.I. 1990). School children have been recognized as a member of an identifiable group. See McKenna, 1998 WL 269228, at *4 (recognizing an elementary school student as a member of an identifiable group that created a special duty); see also Gagnon, 570 A.2d at 659 (finding that day care children were an identifiable group that created a special duty).
Plaintiffs argue that Defendants owe a special duty of care because, as school administrators, they have a special relationship with school children. See Pls.' Obj. 20. In support of their argument, Plaintiffs cite to McKenna, where a minor brought claims against the then acting superintendent and other school administrators for negligent supervision of a subordinate teacher who was accused of child molestation. McKenna, 1998 WL 269228. In its analysis of the superintendent's duty, the Superior Court justice recognized that a special duty existed between the superintendent and the minor plaintiff because of the "special relationship between an educator, as parental proxy, and the school children under his supervision[.]" Id. at *4.
The Court notes the factual similarities and claims between McKenna and the present case, with both plaintiffs bringing claims of negligent supervision against school administrators in their individual capacity for their failure to supervise and report the behavior of a subordinate teacher that allegedly resulted in their injuries. However, the present case can be distinguished because Defendants have not been employed or held an administrative role over Thomas at any point John Doe attended North Kingstown High School. As Defendants argue, and as made evident in Plaintiffs' First Amended Complaint, Defendants were not employed by the North Kingstown School Department at the time of John Doe's injury. This distinction differentiates McKenna from the present case, rendering Plaintiffs' reliance on it misplaced.
Plaintiffs' First Amended Complaint alleges that Kenyon was employed from 1985 until 2009, Foley was employed from 1992 to 2010, and Thornton was employed from 2007 to 2011. See First Am. Compl. ¶¶ 10-11, 14. Plaintiffs allege John Doe was a student at North Kingstown High School from 2014-2016. See id. ¶ 61. Taking all of Plaintiffs' allegations as true, these Defendants were not employed by the North Kingstown School Department at the time of John Doe's tenure at North Kingstown High School. Thus, John Doe would not have become a student to form any type of relationship until years after Defendants had left their employment. In turn, a special relationship could not have formed because John Doe was not a student at the time of Defendants' alleged negligent actions. See Ho-Rath v. Corning Inc., 275 A.3d 100, 107 (R.I. 2022) (holding a doctor-patient relationship had not formed because defendant's allegedly negligent conduct occurred in 1993 and plaintiff was not born until 1998).
Absent a special duty and relationship between the parties, the Court now considers a number of factors in determining whether to impose a duty on Defendants. In Banks v. Bowen's Landing Corp., 522 A.2d 1222 (R.I. 1987), the Rhode Island Supreme Court adopted a five-factor test to determine the presence or absence of a duty for negligence purposes:
"(1) the foreseeability of harm to the plaintiff, (2) the degree of certainty that the plaintiff suffered an injury, (3) the closeness of connection between the defendant's conduct and the injury suffered, (4) the policy of preventing future harm, and (5) the extent of the burden to the defendant and the consequences to the community for imposing a duty to exercise care with resulting liability for breach." Banks, 522 A.2d. at 1225 (citation omitted).
"To start, foreseeability is '[t]he linchpin in the analysis of whether a duty flows from a defendant to a plaintiff ....'" Flynn, 177 A.3d at 479 (quoting Selwyn v. Ward, 879 A.2d 882, 887 (R.I. 2005)). The Rhode Island Supreme Court has explained the need to '"limit[ ] the scope of a defendant's duty according to risks he or she reasonably perceived,"' and have expressed '"that a duty must be based on conduct 'sufficiently likely to result in the kind of harm' suffered by the plaintiff."' Id. (quoting Volpe v. Gallagher, 821 A.2d 699, 705 (R.I. 2003)). Similarly, '"in order to temper foreseeability . . . an adequate nexus must exist between the foreseeability of [the plaintiff's] harm and the actions of the defendant."' Id. (quoting Marchetti v. Parsons, 638 A.2d 1047, 1051 (R.I. 1994)).
Plaintiffs argue that John Doe's injury was a foreseeable result of Defendants' lack of oversight and inaction. In their First Amended Complaint, Plaintiffs allege that "Defendants exhibited the repeated and routine practice of avoiding complaints by 'resolving' such complaints so there was no formal process pursued, no record of a complaint, nor a predictable outcome, resulting in a lack of oversight[.]" First Am. Compl. ¶ 42. The nexus between John Doe's alleged injury and Defendants' lack of reporting and supervision is likely diminished by the time between Defendants' acts. The Court notes that it may have been foreseeable that Defendants' lack of reporting and oversight could result in the kind of harm suffered by John Doe at the time of their employment and when Thomas was under their direct supervision; however, Defendants have been removed from the North Kingstown school system for a number of years and such a temporal factor may restrain the finding of foreseeability. See Marchetti, 638 A.2d at 1051 ("We believe that a temporal and spacial limitation is a necessary and just restraint on foreseeability in order to keep a defendant's liability in proportion to his or her culpability.").
However, even if Defendants' alleged inaction and lack of supervision were a foreseeable result of John Doe's injury, '"foreseeability of injury does not, in and of itself, give rise to a duty."' Gushlaw, 42 A.3d at 1261 (quoting Ferreira v. Strack, 636 A.2d 682, 688 n.4 (R.I. 1994)). And Rhode Island courts must "consider the foreseeability issue in tandem with all factors germane to the duty analysis." Id.
Concerning the second factor of the closeness of connection between the Defendants' conduct and the injury suffered, the Court finds this factor weighs in favor of Defendants. In Gushlaw, our Supreme Court applied the Banks factors to determine if an individual had a duty to prevent his intoxicated friend whom he transported to the friend's vehicle from subsequently driving and killing a third party in an automobile crash. Gushlaw, 42 A.3d 1245. In its analysis of the closeness of connection, our Supreme Court determined that the significant lapse of time in between the defendant's alleged negligence and the death of the decedent strained the connection between the defendant's conduct and the injury suffered. See id. at 1261-62. The Court further found that the friend's voluntary action of driving the vehicle further weakened the connection. See id. at 1262.
Here, Defendants' negligent actions occurred years before John Doe sustained his alleged injuries, and such a significant length of time strains the closeness of the connection to be found. Furthermore, John Doe's injury resulted from Thomas' voluntary action, which will further strain a connection to be made. See Banks, 522 A.2d at 1225 (connection between defendant's conduct in not posting warning signs and plaintiff's injury caused by his voluntarily diving into harbor was not close). Thus, the voluntary action taken by Thomas with the lack of temporal closeness of events strains the closeness of connection between the Defendants' conduct and the injury suffered. See Gushlaw, 42 A.3d at 1262.
The fifth factor is the extent of the burden to the Defendants and the consequences to the community for imposing a duty to exercise care with resulting liability for breach. This factor further weighs in Defendant' favor because the question arises of when the duty would conclude after leaving employment. Further, the consequences that come with the imposition of such a duty could be great. Our Supreme Court has already warned about the consequences of holding supervisory employees individually liable when it stated that
"allowing for the possibility of individual liability would have a predictably chilling effect on the discretionary management decisions of supervisory employees-since such a regime would, in all likelihood, result in supervisors frequently tending to make employment decisions based on their apprehensiveness as to the possibility of suit rather than on what they deem to be in the best interest of the employer." Mancini v. City of Providence, 155 A.3d 159, 165-66 (R.I. 2017).
The Court notes that the reasoning in Mancini was within the context of the Rhode Island Fair Employment Act but finds our Supreme Court's analysis to be analogous to the present case.
Thus, such an imposition of a duty would likely result in school administrators making decisions that would suit their own needs rather than those of their schools and students out of apprehensiveness for an individual suit against themselves after their employment. As a school administrator, decisions should be made in the best interest of the school and students. Finding a duty in this case would likely have a chilling effect on school administrators to carry out their duties during their employment.
Public policy considerations and notions of fairness also guide this Court's decision in finding that Defendants do not owe a duty to Plaintiffs. Our Supreme Court has "cautioned that Banks did not limit the scope of factors that we should consider. . ." Laprocina v. Lourie, 250 A.3d 1281, 1288 (R.I. 2021). "[T]he duty inquiry should also reflect consideration of 'all relevant factors, including the relationship of the parties, the scope and burden of the obligation to be imposed upon the defendant, public policy considerations, and notions of fairness.'" Id. at 1288-89 (quoting Carlson v. Town of South Kingstown, 131 A.3d 705, 709 (R.I. 2016).
Finding of a duty here could have negative public effects such as deterring individuals from seeking or accepting administration roles due to the increased risk of being held individually liable for the actions of subordinates long after they have moved on from the position. Plaintiffs warn that not finding a duty could have adverse effects to future plaintiffs. Plaintiffs argue that finding a duty here "would have a chilling effect upon a party's ability to seek recompense from an individual professional tortfeasor - by allowing a wrong-doer to escape responsibility simply by ending their relationship with their employer. . ." Pls.' Obj. 18. However, such is not the case here as the decision to not find a duty is made on the currently pled facts of Defendants not being employed at any time that John Doe attended North Kingstown High School or at the time of the alleged injury.
Importantly, this Court's ruling does not contravene the notions of fairness among the parties. Finding no duty here does not restrict Plaintiffs' availability of alternate remedial avenues, such as bringing its claims against the current administration and municipal entities. Plaintiffs contend that through the current motion "Defendants inappropriately seek to remove themselves from a discovery process[.]" Pls.' Obj. 19. However, dismissing them from the current suit does not stop them from being subpoenaed or deposed to determine the negligence of the other defendants.
Because the Court fails to find a special relationship or special duty and that the factors to determine a legal duty weigh in Defendants' favor, this Court finds that Defendants do not owe Plaintiffs a duty of care under a theory of negligent supervision and training when they were not employed by the school at the time of John Doe's tenure or injury. With the finding of no duty owed to Plaintiffs, this Court finds it unnecessary to determine the applicability of the public duty doctrine and if a defendant can be sued in their individual capacity for a negligent supervision and training claim.
IV Conclusion
For the reasons stated herein, this Court grants Defendant's Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings. Defendants' counsel shall submit an appropriate order for entry.