Case Title: Sly v. Board of Education

Citation: 213 Kan. 415, 516 P.2d 895

Docket Number: 47,020

State: kansas

Court: Kansas Supreme Court

Date: 1973-12-08T00:00:00Z

Document:
213 Kan. 415 (1973)
516 P.2d 895
RICHARD ALLEN SLY, a Minor, By and through Beverly Jean Sly, Mother and Next Friend, Appellant,
v.
THE BOARD OF EDUCATION OF THE CITY OF KANSAS CITY, KANSAS, WESLEY R. CHANNELL and RONALD JOST, Appellees.
No. 47,020

Supreme Court of Kansas.
Opinion filed December 8, 1973.
Lloyd Burke Bronston, of Bronston and Smith, of Kansas City, argued the cause, and James F. Savage, of the same firm, was with him on the brief for the appellant.
Frank Saunders, Jr., of Overland Park, argued the cause, and Richard T. Merker, of Overland Park, was with him on the brief for the appellees.
The opinion of the court was delivered by
HARMAN, C.:
This is a negligence action by a public school student for damages for personal injuries resulting from an assault by fellow students. Joined as defendants were the board of education and its members and the principal and vice-principal of the junior high school where the incident occurred. Maintenance of a nuisance was also alleged as a ground of recovery against the school board. Summary judgments were rendered for all defendants, from which plaintiff appeals.
In a separate proceeding the trial court first rendered summary judgment for the school board and its members, this on the theory that under the doctrine the governmental immunity they were not liable for negligent acts performed while acting in a governmental capacity and further that no actionable nuisance was shown. Later the trial court summarily entered judgment for the principal (Channell) *417 and vice-principal (Jost) on the ground any negligence on their part was not the cause of appellant's injuries.
The only facts supplied us in the case are those stated in the trial judge's second memorandum opinion, which statement is conceded by appellant to be an accurate chonology of events. We quote the portions of that opinion relating to the facts:
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In urging reversal of the judgment summarily rendered in favor of the appellee board of education and its members appellant acknowledges that in their operation of a public school system they were acting in a governmental as distinguished from a proprietary capacity and further that there was no statutory exception to the *419 doctrine of governmental immunity in effect at the time of this occurrence which would make them liable in tort while so acting. However, he asserts this case falls within the exception stated in Rose v. Board of Education, 184 Kan. 486, 337 P.2d 652, as follows:
Succinctly stated, appellant contends that permitting students to gather on the school grounds without access to the school building and without prescribing supervision constituted an on-going nuisance. Appellant points out that in Rose we commented "... it may be stated as a general rule that what may or may not constitute a nuisance in a particular case depends upon many things, such as the type of neighborhood, the nature of the thing or wrong complained of, its proximity to those alleging injury or damage, its frequency, continuity or duration, the damage or annoyance resulting, and that each case must of necessity depend upon the particular facts and circumstances." (p. 489.)
In Allen v. City of Ogden, 210 Kan. 136, 499 P.2d 527, recovery was sought from a city on the theory that excessive force by a city police officer in making an arrest and continued harassment of the arrested person constituted a nuisance. In concluding the actions complained of did not constitute a nuisance this court relied on a definition found in many of our decisions as follows:
Allen is representative of the strict standard of proof applied in determining what constitutes a nuisance where a municipality is acting in its governmental, as distinguished from proprietary, capacity.
Appellant cites no case in which particular acts or omissions of school authorities have been held to constitute a nuisance. Running throughout all our cases where recovery has been allowed against either private persons or municipalities engaged in proprietary functions on the basis of nuisance is the element of a wrongful, *420 offensive, continuous condition impendingly dangerous to health or the property rights of others peculiarly subject to the hazard (see discussion and cases cited in Culwell v. Abbott Construction Co., 211 Kan. 359, 506 P.2d 1191.) In Jones v. City of Kansas City, 176 Kan. 406, 271 P.2d 803, an action alleging nuisance was brought against a school board for personal injuries sustained by a student. Plaintiff appealed from an order sustaining a demurrer to her petition. After reciting the traditional definition of nuisance and noting the contents of the petition this court stated:
In Koehn v. Board of Education, 193 Kan. 263, 392 P.2d 949, the plaintiff student had returned to school following the noon recess and was required to remain outside the school building until classes resumed. During this wait on the school grounds he was injured by reason of the "horseplay" of another student. His suit against the board was based on lack of rules prescribing supervision during the period and the board's failure to discharge its statutory duty to provide a healthful place to receive education. Demurrer to plaintiff's petition was sustained. In affirming the judgment this court commented that the petition contained no allegation which could be construed as charging the board with creating or maintaining a nuisance.
Actions in other jurisdictions where recovery for assaults by fellow students in the absence of supervision has been predicated on maintenance of a nuisance, have likewise met a similar fate in the appellate courts (see anno. Schools  Torts  Sovereign Immunity, 33 ALR 3d 703, 756-759). Illustrative is Husser, Aplnt. v. Pittsburgh School Dist., 425 Pa. 249, 228 A.2d 910, in which a student sought damages for injuries received when he was beaten by a group of rowdy youths while leaving the school at the end of the day's classes and after he had refused demands for money. His complaint alleged that similar criminal acts had occurred with great frequency in and about the school during the months immediately preceding the attack alleged; that the school district and its *421 agents knew of these prior occurrences and the danger present to those attending the school but did not take any precautionary measures to protect the plaintiff or other pupils attending the school. The court held that the alleged dereliction on the part of the school may have amounted to negligence but did not constitute maintenance of a nuisance to which the governmental immunity rule was inapplicable.
In the case at bar the board's conduct complained of simply cannot be classified as a nuisance so as to place it and its members within the exception to the governmental immunity rule. Hence the trial court properly rendered summary judgment for the board and its members.
We turn now to appellant's contention the trial court erroneously entered summary judgment for the principal and vice-principal, appellees Channell and Jost. It should first be noted that the doctrine insulating municipalities from liability for acts done in performing a governmental function does not extend to negligent employees of the municipalities. In Rose v. Board of Education, supra, the rule was stated:
It is thus apparent that even though governmental immunity precludes action against the board of education, absent a nuisance, the principal and vice-principal may be held individually liable for any negligence on their part causing injury. Recovery against them is predicated on their failure to adopt any policy or rules for supervising students waiting on the grounds in the morning before the school building was unlocked and in failing to provide supervision although they knew that such situation was potentially dangerous.
In rendering judgment the trial court concluded as a matter of law that a teacher owes a duty to exercise due care for the safety of students in his charge, the standard being that degree of care which a person of reasonable prudence would exercise under the circumstances, and that this duty is not limited to students inside *422 the school building but extends to those outside either on the playground or where they are congregated awaiting entry in the morning under proper circumstances. However, the court refrained from specifically finding a breach of this duty but, as already indicated, rendered summary judgment on the theory that if the principal and vice-principal were negligent in failing to provide for supervision of students waiting outside the building, such negligence was not the proximate cause of appellant's injury. We shall deal with this approach.
In considering the problem certain rules governing propriety of summary judgment must be borne in mind.
K.S.A. 60-256 (c) fixes the standard for determining whether summary judgment should be granted. In pertinent part it provides:
In Lawrence v. Deemy, 204 Kan. 299, 461 P.2d 770, we stated (citations omitted):
*423 In Hastain v. Greenbaum, 205 Kan. 475, 481, 470 P.2d 741, we quoted approvingly from 3 Barron and Holtzoff, Federal Practice and Procedure, rules edition, § 1234, as follows:
And in Sade v. Hemstrom, 205 Kan. 514, 471 P.2d 340, we held:
Here it appears discovery was complete when summary judgment was rendered, depositions having been taken of all the parties and of the two offending students as well, and the trial court had before it pertinent school records requested by appellant. Neither at trial level nor here has appellant pointed out any other or further evidence which would be available in support of his claim and he has acknowledged that the trial court's opinion contains an accurate statement of the facts. He has not suggested any favorable inference overlooked by the court. Upon this state of the record appellant is in no position now to challenge the rendition of summary judgment on the ground it was prematurely entered.
We consider then whether the court properly terminated the case on the issue of legal causation of the facts before it. Appellant contends the violence he sustained was foreseeable and simply argues the record presented a strong case of causal connection between appellees' alleged dereliction and his injury which should have been submitted to a jury for final determination. Appellees assert there was no causal connection between any inadequacy on their part and the willful and wrongful assault on appellant by his fellow students. They rely on that which has classically been known as independent intervening cause. They also assert there is no *424 showing which would justify the conclusion that supervision would have prevented appellant's injury. We hesitate to adopt this latter position in the posture of summary judgment although some courts in other states have done so upon the facts before them (see citations in anno. Schools  Tort Liability  Students' Acts, 36 ALR 3d 330, 334, footnote 5).
In Gard v. Sherwood Construction Co., 194 Kan. 541, 400 P.2d 995, we stated that ordinarily the determination of proximate cause rests in the province of the jury, or the court, as trier of the fact. Proximate cause was defined as follows:
In Gard we also held:
In Stevenson v. City of Kansas City, 187 Kan. 705, 360 P.2d 1, this court was concerned with the issue of causation. There, while plaintiff was attending a wrestling match in a public building she was assaulted by a would-be robber carrying a heavy metal object. She sought damages from the owner of the building and the operators of the sporting event on various grounds of negligence including lack of supervision and adequate measures for protection of paying customers. In the course of its opinion holding that no cause of action was stated in plaintiff's petition, this court quoted approvingly the following:
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The foregoing is in accord with general principles of law where the question of liability has been disposed of on the causation issue, i.e., assuming negligence on a defendant's part, whether a subsequent wrongful act was that which traditionally has been known as intervening and superseding cause. These principles have found expression in 57 Am.Jur.2d, Negligence, § 206, as follows:
Thus it appears that foreseeability may be a factor pertinent to the determination of causation, as well as in the delineation of negligence, when an act of a third party plays a roll in the injury, and this court has so declared.
Here appellant's injury was directly caused by the sudden, unexpected, unprovoked, wrongful assaults upon him by his fellow students, King and Brown  an incident characterized by the trial court as "all over in a matter of seconds". King had been a "discipline problem" in school but not because of fighting or violence. Brown likewise bore the same label and had the reputation of troublemaker and bully. Although there had been some difficulty between appellant and King outside the classroom on the previous day, the incident was not reported to the principal or vice-principal until after the affray in question. More importantly, the trial court specifically found there had been no prior fighting between students while waiting for the schoolhouse doors to open in the morning  the critical time and area wherein lack of supervision is asserted by appellant as causing his injury. Deliberate malicious assaults by students should not be required to be anticipated by school personnel in the absence of notice of prior misconduct of that nature or the likelihood thereof. To hold otherwise would virtually cast school authorities in the role of insurers of the safety of all pupils in their charge. In summation, the facts relied upon by *426 appellant were insufficient to show that appelles reasonably should have foreseen the occurrence causing his injury. Appellant's injury must be regarded as legally caused by the sudden, unexpected intervention of King and Brown rather than lack of supervision on appellees' part. The trial court did not err in rendering summary judgment for appellees Channell and Jost.
Judgment affirmed.
APPROVED BY THE COURT.
FATZER, C.J. and SCHROEDER, J., dissent on disposition of appeal with respect to appellees Channell and Jost.