Source: http://nv.findacase.com/research/wfrmDocViewer.aspx/xq/fac.20180315_0003200.DNV.htm/qx
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 00:42:01+00:00

Document:
Jane Doe alleges that her daughter, Joann Doe,  was assaulted by a classroom teaching aide while she was a 13-year-old, special-education student at Jerome D. Mack Middle School. She sues both the aide and the Clark County School District (CCSD) under various state and federal theories. CCSD now moves for summary judgment on the majority of Doe's claims. In response, she abandons several claims, leaving only: (1) negligence/negligent supervision; (2) negligent infliction of emotional distress (NIED); and (3) a Monell-based § 1983 civil-rights claim. I find that the record does not support Doe's § 1983 or NIED claims, but whether CCSD breached its duty of care by permitting the aide to be alone with students after he was reprimanded for touching one of them creates a genuine issue of fact that precludes summary judgment on Doe's negligence and negligent-supervision tort claims. Accordingly, I grant summary judgment for CCSD on all but the negligence claims and order the parties to a mandatory settlement conference.
Joann Doe was 13 years old and enrolled at Mack as a special-education student. Joann has severe autism and the intellectual, mental, and emotional capacity of a five-year-old child. As part of its special-education curriculum, Mack teaches general life and household skills. These skills are taught in a hallway-like laundry room situated between two other classrooms with a door on either side, a washer and dryer, and a bathroom. The doors on either side have no windows, no locks, and will swing shut automatically unless propped open.
On May 10, 2016, defendant Fausto Barraza-Balcazar-a special-education teaching aide-took Joann and another female student into the laundry room to rotate the laundry from the washing machine to the dryer. While the other student went to the bathroom, Barraza positioned Joann up against the laundry appliances and pressed his body, from chest to thigh, against her backside. Joann's teacher, Natasha Thompson, walked into the laundry room and saw the profile of Barraza pressed up against Joann. Joann then ran into the bathroom. Thompson reported the incident that afternoon. Barraza was suspended the next day. After an investigation, he was terminated. The Clark County District Attorney's Office charged Barraza with four counts of lewdness with a child under the age of 14 (three of which were for incidents involving Joann and the other for an incident involving the other female student), and Barraza eventually pled guilty to one count of attempted lewdness with a child under the age of 14.
Three months before the laundry-room incident, Barraza received a reprimand from Mack's assistant principal that read: “Re: Interactions with students. Mr. Barraza, you are directed to not place your hands in any manner on a student. Do not horseplay with students or tap students to get their attention. Further incidents will result in disciplinary action.” In a written response, Barraza claimed that the incident was a big misunderstanding. He explained that he was trying to get the attention of a student with Down Syndrome and that he was holding a piece of paper when he called the student's name. When the student turned, he reacted as if Barraza was going to hit him with the paper. This written exchange is the only evidence in the record of the events surrounding the reprimand.
Jane Doe sues CCSD and Barraza on behalf of herself and Joann. In her second-amended complaint, she separates her claims and theories into nine causes of action: (1) negligence; (2) assault/battery against Barraza only; (3) sexual assault against Barraza only; (4) Title IX violations; (5) a Monell-based § 1983 deliberate-indifference claim against CCSD; (6) negligent hiring, retention, and supervision; (7) NIED; (8) intentional infliction of emotional distress; and (9) vicarious liability. Although vicarious liability is not an independent cause of action,  it appears that Doe has alleged it in conjunction with, and in an effort to hold CCSD liable for, her negligence and negligent-supervision claims. Because the negligence and negligent-supervision claims are based on the same allegedly breached duty, I construe them as a single claim.
The Clerk of Court entered default against Barraza after he failed to respond to process.CCSD now moves for summary judgment on all claims against it. In response, Doe offers a “Limited Response” and does “not oppose” summary judgment on the Title IX claim, the IIED claim, and the negligent hiring and training claim. I find that CCSD has sustained its summary-judgment burden and that Doe's express concession and failure to demonstrate a genuine issue of fact on these undisputed claims merits summary judgment on them in CCSD's favor.
Doe disputes the remainder of CCSD's summary-judgment arguments: (1) Doe cannot support her deliberate-indifference § 1983 claim against CCSD; (2) the Nevada Supreme Court's decision in Wood v. Safeway precludes its liability; (3) “If Plaintiff is attempting to base a negligence claim on the lack of a window in the door, ” that construction-defect claim is barred by Nevada's statute of repose; (4) CCSD enjoys discretionary immunity from her negligent supervision claim; and (5) Doe lacks the physical impact necessary to support her NIED claim.
I consider each argument in turn.
Summary judgment is appropriate when the pleadings and admissible evidence “show there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” When considering summary judgment, the court views all facts and draws all inferences in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. If reasonable minds could differ on material facts, summary judgment is inappropriate because its purpose is to avoid unnecessary trials when the facts are undisputed, and the case must then proceed to the trier of fact.
If the moving party satisfies Rule 56 by demonstrating the absence of any genuine issue of material fact, the burden shifts to the party resisting summary judgment to “set forth specific facts showing that there is a genuine issue for trial.” The nonmoving party “must do more than simply show that there is some metaphysical doubt as to the material facts”; he “must produce specific evidence, through affidavits or admissible discovery material, to show that” there is a sufficient evidentiary basis on which a reasonable fact finder could find in his favor.
There is no respondeat superior or vicarious liability under § 1983. So, a municipal entity like CCSD can be held liable under § 1983 for an employee's violation of a constitutional right only if: (1) it had a policy, practice, or custom that amounts to “deliberate indifference” to that constitutional right, and (2) that policy, practice, or custom is the “moving force” behind the constitutional violation.
CCSD's failure to supervise Barraza in the laundry room of Mack Middle School is not a custom or practice so pervasive that it has the force of law within the district. It is merely how one aide in one special-education classroom performed his job. In her statement of facts, Doe attempts to give Barraza's daily job activities the imprimatur of administrative approval by noting that “the school's administrators review all submitted lesson plans, ” and Joann's teacher “did include her students' laundry activities in her written lesson plans.” But Doe acknowledges that even the school's principal did “not know how teacher's aides' actions [were] monitored while said teacher's aides [were] inside the laundry room with special education students.” So, there is simply no evidence in this record that “permitting BARRAZA-BALCAZAR to regularly be alone in the laundry room with one or more Special Education students with the laundry room door fully closed” was “a conscious choice to follow a course of action among various, far safer alternatives, reflecting a deliberate indifference to” Joann's constitutional rights.
Even if the law recognized municipal liability based on a decision to permit Barraza to continue to work with the special education students unsupervised after his no-touching reprimand, Doe's theory also fails as a matter of fact. As Doe acknowledges in her statement of facts, the way that laundry activities were performed and supervised in Joann's classroom varied. Sometimes the laundry doors would be open, sometimes closed; sometimes Barraza would accompany the students, sometimes the teacher, Ms. Thompson, would; sometimes they took one or two students, but “usually two or more.” This evidence of the lack of a set practice undermines Doe's theory that the Special Education program had any customs at all.
Similarly, there is no evidence in this record that the moving force behind Barraza's assault of Joann was anything but Barraza's own deviant sexual impulses. I thus grant summary judgment for CCSD on Doe's § 1983 claim.
CCSD offers three arguments against Doe's negligence claims: (1) Wood v. Safeway, Inc. prevents CCSD from being held liable for Barraza's conduct, (2) “No Claim Can Be Based Upon Design/Construction of the School, ” (3) CCSD enjoys discretionary immunity from this negligent-supervision claim under NRS 41.032(2). None has any merit.
In Wood, a janitor employed by an independent cleaning company raped a Safeway employee at the Safeway store where they both worked. He had no criminal history, was run through a background check before he was hired, and was never the subject of a sexual-harassment complaint. The Nevada Supreme Court held that the janitor's act was not foreseeable and was “an intervening superseding act” that relieved the employer of liability for it. CCSD argues that “[t]he same result should occur in this case-an employee's intentional criminal conduct should not be imputed to” it.
But our facts are different. Just months before the incident with Joann, Barraza was reprimanded for touching a student. The circumstances that led to that reprimand are not well developed in this record, leaving genuine issues of fact about whether the information known to CCSD made it foreseeable that Barraza would assault a student the way that he assaulted Joann.This material distinction makes this case more akin to Anderson v. Mandalay Corp., in which the Nevada Supreme Court found that various facts-including the fact that the assaulting employee had been suspended in response to allegations that he harassed and threatened a female supervisor-precluded summary judgment on a guest's claim that the hotel was vicariously liable when the employee improperly used an access key to enter her hotel room and sexually assaulted her. The court reasoned that, based on this employee's reprimand history and other information, “a reasonable jury could conclude it was foreseeable that [the employee] would abuse his keycard access to sexually assault a [hotel] guest.” Because Barraza's prior reprimand for improperly touching a student gives rise to genuine issues of fact about whether his assault of Joann was reasonably foreseeable to CCSD, I deny CCSD's request to grant summary judgment on any of Doe's vicarious-liability theories based on Wood.
Next, CCSD argues that, because “[a]t times Plaintiff has noted the door from the classroom to the laundry area” was windowless, her negligence claim is a construction-defect claim that was brought more than six years after the school's construction, so it's time-barred by NRS 11.202. NRS 11.202 is Nevada's statute of repose for construction-defect claims. It bars claims for deficient design, planning, supervision or observation of construction activities, or injuries arising from design or construction defects six years after the completion of construction. Doe's claim is not a construction-defect claim. She is not suing the designer of the laundry room for Joann's injuries; she's suing CCSD for allowing Barraza to be alone in the laundry room unsupervised. CCSD's attempt to construe this claim as one barred by NRS 11.202 strains credulity.

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