Opinion ID: 853293
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Matthew's complaint against School

Text: In Miller v. Griesel, 261 Ind. 604, 308 N.E.2d 701, 706 (1974), this Court emphasized that schools are neither insurers of their pupils' safety nor strictly liable for any injuries that may occur to them. Nonetheless, we recognized a duty for school authorities to exercise reasonable care and supervision for the safety of the children under their control. Miller, 308 N.E.2d at 706. We have asserted this formulation in subsequent cases. See, e.g., Beckett v. Clinton Prairie Sch. Corp., 504 N.E.2d 552, 554 (Ind.1987) (holding the trial court erred in determining as a matter of law that the school did not breach its duty to a high school student injured during baseball practice); Norman v. Turkey Run Community School Corp., 274 Ind. 310, 411 N.E.2d 614, 618 (Ind.1980) (finding no breach of duty where a student was injured while running on the playground). Seizing on the supervision language in Miller, the Court of Appeals previously has declared that no duty exists where the injury to a student occurs off school property. See Brewster v. Rankins, 600 N.E.2d 154, 158 (Ind.Ct.App.1992) (holding that teacher and school had no duty to prevent injury suffered by a child when his nine-year-old brother hit him with a golf club because the accident occurred off of School property and, although Teacher and School acquiesced in the golf club's use, the activity was not supervised by School or its officials....); Swanson v. Wabash College, 504 N.E.2d 327, 331 (Ind. Ct.App.1987) (holding school not liable for injuries sustained by a college student while practicing baseball at an off-campus location because school had no duty to supervise [ ] recreational baseball practices.). Relying on Brewster and Swanson, the Court of Appeals in this case likewise reasoned that School owed Matthew no duty because his injuries did not occur on school property. As this Court has previously observed, Duty is not sa[ ]crosanct in itself, but is only an expression of the sum total of those considerations of policy which lead the law to say that the plaintiff is entitled to protection. Webb v. Jarvis, 575 N.E.2d 992, 997 (Ind.1991) (quoting W. Page Keeton et al., Prosser and Keeton on the Law of Torts § 53 (5th ed.1984)). By declaring that a school may be held liable for the injuries suffered by its students, we essentially have made a policy decision that a school's relationship to its students, the foreseeability of harm, and public policy concerns entitle students to protection. We articulate this expression of liability as a school's duty to exercise reasonable care and supervision for its students. Miller, 308 N.E.2d at 706. An approach that focuses on rearticulating that duty based upon a given set of facts is misplaced in our view because to do so presupposes that an issue which is thought to be settled must be revisited each time a party frames the duty issue a little differently. [1] Rather, because a school's duty to its students already has been established, the focus shifts to whether a given set of facts represents a breach of that duty. Although the existence of duty is a matter of law for the court to decide, a breach of duty, which requires a reasonable relationship between the duty imposed and the act alleged to have constituted the breach, is usually a matter left to the trier of fact. See Delta Tau Delta, Beta Alpha Chapter v. Johnson, 712 N.E.2d 968, 974 (Ind.1999). Only where the facts are undisputed and lead to but a single inference or conclusion may the court as a matter of law determine whether a breach of duty has occurred. Stephenson v. Ledbetter, 596 N.E.2d 1369, 1372 (Ind.1992). As applied to the facts in this case, the question is whether School breached its duty of reasonable care and supervision by providing Matthew with inaccurate information and inadequate warnings when it instructed him on firearm safety. The fact that Matthew's injuries occurred off school property may have a bearing on the foreseeability component of proximate causation. See Bader v. Johnson, 732 N.E.2d 1212, 1216-17 (Ind.2000) (stating that in a negligence action plaintiff must show: (1) duty owed to plaintiff by defendant; (2) breach of duty by allowing conduct to fall below the applicable standard of care; and (3) compensable injury proximately caused by defendant's breach of duty). However, we see no relationship between the location of Matthew's injuries and School's duty of reasonable care and supervision. Therefore, we conclude that the trial court erred in granting summary judgment to School on the ground that, as a matter of law, School owed Matthew no duty.